i 



iijl 







^^°.^ 









V- 















ON THE HEADWATERS 
OF PEACE RIVER 




Limestone Peak overlooking Quadacha Forks. 



ON THE HEADWATERS 
. OF PEACE RIVER 



A NARRATIVE OF A THOUSAND-MILE CANOE TRIP 

TO A LITTLE-KNOWN RANGE OF THE 

CANADIAN ROCKIES 



BY 
PAUL LELAND HAWORTH 

ADTHOR OF "THE PATH OF GLORY," 

'GEORGE WASHINGTON: FARMER," "BY PACK-TRAIN TO MOUNT DALHOUSIE," "THE 'LUNGE 

OF FRENCH RIVER," "A MODERN VIKING," ETC. 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
1917 



FTosf 



COPYKIGHT, 1917, BY 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published October, 1917 



OGT 3!J9a7 




©C.i.A47e865 



"I am glad to know that you are to have a fine, 
large trip in the Canadian Rockies, into a remote 
and little-known wilderness. I hope that you 
will be able to go beyond the farthest camping- 
ground and the last tin can." 

— Dr. William T. Hornaday to the author, 
March 8, 1916. 



PREFACE 

As a boy I fixed my heart on being a naturalist; I 
learned how to skin and stuff animals and birds; I read 
every book on natural history and wild life on which I 
could lay my hands. But at the university I entered 
the only life that was considered worthy of study was 
that of blind fish or of minute organisms whose wriggling 
forms could be seen only through a high-power micro- 
scope. I did some such zoology as this at the university 
biological station, but I specialized in history and gave up 
my original ambition. 

For many years I was a student of books, a seeker 
after vain degrees conferred by pompous pedagogues in 
parti-colored gowns. Nay more, for a time I was a 
pedagogue myself in a great university beside the Hudson 
and lived in the land of the "Modern Cliff Dwellers," 
harassed by the roar of elevated trains and breathing 
the fetid air of the great metropolis of the western world. 
I delved into dry subjects in musty libraries, wrote 
books that I hoped would seem learned, and came to 
have the pale face and stooping shoulders of the pro- 
fessional pundit. 

But the primeval instinct was not entirely extin- 
guished. A month's fishing one golden autumn among 
the Thirty Thousand Islands that fringe the iron-bound 
coast of Lake Huron revived old and half-forgotten feel- 



viii PREFACE 

ings. My youthful love of horses and guns, of clear 
water and the open country, surged up once more hot 
and fierce; the thin veneer of supercivilization began to 
slough away. Thenceforward, except as a matter of busi- 
ness, I read little save the books of explorers, naturalists, 
and hunters, and many were the golden hours I spent 
with Gordon-Cumming, Stanley, doughty Sir Samuel 
Baker, Selous, Hornaday, White, and Roosevelt. With 
Peary I travelled every foot of his twenty years' weary 
journey to the pole; I went with Amundsen on both his 
Arctic quests; there was hardly a hunter or adventurer 
in any land or clime who was not my bosom friend and 
companion in wild experiences. Best of all I liked the 
penetrators of our own American northland. I crossed 
the Continent with Mackenzie and descended with him 
the great river that bears his name; with old Samuel 
Hearne I traversed snowy wastes to the Coppermine 
and shuddered with him at the massacre at Bloody Falls; 
with Whitney, the Tyrrells, Hanbury, Thompson Seton, 
and Warburton Pike I visited the Barren Grounds, was 
bitten by myriads of mosquitoes, saw the musk-ox and 
la Joule of the caribou, shivered in icy tents, famished in 
times of famine, feasted when flesh was abundant, and 
breathed the scent from the myriad of flowers in summer. 
Nor was I content with second-hand enjoyment alone. 
One fall I made a trip to the mountains about the head- 
waters of the Saskatchewan and Athabasca Rivers, and, 
though the trip had to be a short one and in some re- 
spects was disappointing, it served to whet my appetite. 
I had hardly returned from it before I began to look for- 



PREFACE ix 

ward to and then to plan a trip that should be a real trip, 
and that is how I happen to be writing this book. 

It is no longer an easy task to find in North America 
a primeval wilderness — even a little one — in which to 
indulge a fondness for wandering in remote regions 
"beyond the farthest camping-ground and the last tin 
can." Labrador has been penetrated, the Barren Grounds 
have repeatedly been traversed, and Alaska has yielded 
up her geographical secrets to argonauts drawn thither 
by the lure of gold. For some years, however, my eyes 
were turned longingly toward a region that seemed to 
promise a persevering traveler an opportunity to set his 
foot where no other white man had been — at least no 
white man who had left a record of his journey. 

Far up in northern British Columbia the mighty 
Peace River takes its rise, and after gathering to itself 
the waters of a vast area, breaks its way eastward through 
the barrier of the Rockies toward the Mackenzie and the 
Arctic Sea. The Peace is formed by the junction of 
two streams — the Parsnip flowing up from the south and 
the Finlay flowing down from the north. The main 
course of each of these streams is fairly well known, 
though the Finlay has rarely been ascended. Extended 
research enabled me to learn that in 1824 John Finlay, 
in the interest of the Northwest Fur Company, ascended 
the river that now bears his name to one of its sources 
in Thutade Lake; his journal of the trip was long pre- 
served at Cumberland House but has now been lost. 
However, about a quarter of a century ago Mr. J. B. 
Tyrrell took notes from it, and through his courtesy I 



X PREFACE 

am able to publish them in an appendix. In 1873 Cap- 
tain W. F. Butler ascended the Peace and went up the 
Finlay about fifteen miles to a western tributary, the 
Omineca; fought his way up this stream some distance; 
and later published a short account of the region in his 
book entitled The Wild Northland. In the sixties and 
at intervals thereafter a few prospectors panned some of 
the lower Finlay bars for gold. For many years there 
has been a tiny Hudson's Bay trading-post about sixty 
miles up-stream, and to this post the Indians of the 
region resort to sell their furs. In. 1893 the Canadian 
Geographical Survey sent out a party, headed by R. G. 
McConnell, which ascended the Finlay to the Fishing 
Lakes above the Long Canyon, and McConnell drew a 
map of the river and wrote a description of the region 
from a geological point of view. A few years later would- 
be Klondikers attempted to use the river as a link on 
their way to the Yukon country and experienced many 
hardships from cold and hunger and narrowly escaped a 
conflict with the Indians. 

In short, though Finlay River had never been 
"written up" in a popular way, its main course was 
well enough known, and I had no great difficulty in as- 
certaining a number of facts about it. I learned, for 
example, that most of the western tributaries had all 
been more or less explored by prospectors, for it was 
from these western streams that the precious gold-dust 
came. But to the eastward of the Finlay is a great stretch 
of the Rocky Mountains — the stretch lying south of the 
Liard River and north of Laurier Pass — that had never 



PREFACE xi 

been explored; and there existed rumors, started by- 
trappers who had sought pelts along the border-land, that 
hidden away in the ranges there were "peaks taller than 
Mount Robson." 

The latest attempt to enter this region had been made 
in 191 2 by Mr. Frederick K. Vreeland in the interests of 
the United States Biological Survey. Mr. Vreeland 
and his party went into the country with pack-horses 
from Hudson's Hope on Peace River, penetrated slightly 
north of Laurier Pass, killed specimens of caribou and 
mountain-sheep, and were turned back by the weather, 
rough country, and down timber. Mr. Vreeland pre- 
sented some of the results of this journey in an address 
before the American Geographical Society. 

I believed that it would be interesting to attempt to 
enter the unexplored country. It seemed safe to assume 
that one would be likely to find game there; the trip 
thither and back was certain to be worth while; and merely 
to renew my acquaintance with the Canadian Rockies 
would be a pleasure beyond price. 

The proposed trip appeared the more feasible because 
the recent completion of two railroads had rendered the 
region I wished to visit more accessible. In a few months 
I would be able — if all went well — to make a journey that 
only recently would have occupied the greater part of a 
year. From Edmonton, my outfitting-place, I must travel 
far to the west, then far to the north, then far to the east, 
and then far to the south back to the starting-point. 
Thanks to the new Grand Trunk Pacific, I could do 
the four hundred miles of the westward swing in less 



xii PREFACE 

than a^day and a night, while the just-finished railroad 
to Peace River Crossing would enable me to cover in 
the same manner more than three hundred miles of the 
return. 

Ultimately I decided to make the venture. I had no 
hope or expectation of exhaustively exploring the region, 
or of making any great addition to the fund of geo- 
graphical knowledge. Experiences were what I was seek- 
ing. If I could make the long trip successfully, have a 
bit of hunting and fishing, and determine somewhat gen- 
erally the character of the unexplored mountain region, I 
should feel satisfied. 

I set out for the remote Northwest alone. 

Paul Leland Haworth. 

Eastover, West Newton, Indiana, 
March, 191 7. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Preface vu 

CHAPTER 

I. The Middle Passage i 

II. The Portal n 

III. From Pacific to Arctic Waters .... 35 

IV. Golden Days on Crooked River ... 48 
V. From Fort McLeod to Finlay Forks . . 70 

VI. Bucking the Finlay 9^ 

VII. A Lucky Day no 

VIII. The Last Outpost 117 

IX. Deserter's Canyon 131 

X. To the Mouth of the Quadacha . . . 140 

XL What Makes the Quadacha White ? . . 148 

XII. The Great Glacier 178 

XIIL We Try the Fox River Range .... 187 

XIV. An Experience v^^ith Mountain-Goats . . 197 

XV. We Turn Down to the Long Canyon . . 208 

XVI. An Opportune Meeting v^ith a Bear . . 218 

XVII. Stone's Mountain-Sheep 226 

xiii 



xiv CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVIII. We Build a Raft and Run Part of the 

Long Canyon . . 234 

XIX. Back to Finlay Forks 246 

XX. The Mighty Peace River 254 

XXI. The End of It 280 

Notes from John Finlay's Journal . . 293 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Limestone Peak overlooking Quadacha Forks . . . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

"Where Poundmaker and other befeathered chieftains once built 

their corrals, and slaughtered the buffaloes by thousands" 4 

A glimpse of Mt. Edith Cavell 16 

Scow running the Grand Canyon of the Fraser 18 

The start from Hansard 36 

The start on Summit Lake 44 

On the divide between Pacific and Arctic waters .... 44 

Down one of the "Wagon Roads" 56 

Ivor Guest paddling where Crooked River becomes a consider- 
able stream 64 

Cut bank on Parsnip River 80 

Moose run down by Ivor Guest on snow-shoes 82 

A trapper's main camp 88 

Peterson's place at Finlay Forks 88 

Cabin of a trapper who went to the war 106 

The largest log jam that I recall lies some distance below Pete 

Toy's Bar 106 

Poling her up a ripple 108 

Fort Grahame from across the Finlay 118 

"A more ideal spot for the sport could not be found in a dozen 

kingdoms" ..,,,,.. 134 

XV 



xvi ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING PAGE 



An Arctic "trout" — they are a shapely fish with a long black 

fin 134 

The entrance to Deserter's Canyon 136 

Three Dolly Varden trout caught at Deserter's Canyon . . 138 

A bear's handiwork 138 

Quadacha just above the mouth 146 

Quadacha above the Forks 146 

On the summit of Observation Peak 180 

Looking northeastward from Observation Peak, glacier in dis- 

tance 182 

"She started to turn away but she was too late" .... 192 

"I came in sight of an immense, ragged boulder, 'big as a 

house' " 212 

Huston party on way up mountains 222 

"He was a fine, fat, black bear" 222 

The Finlay Valley and the Kitchener Mountains from where I 

shot the black bear 224 

Our camp in the Balsam Grove 230 ' ' 

A Stone's Sheep 230 

"The Camp Robbers, or Canada Jays, found our meat-rack 

irresistibly attractive" 232 

The Gorge of Sheep Creek 232 

"It was three o'clock . . . before the good craft Necessity was 

launched" 242 

Indian graveyard at Fort Grahame 248 

Gibson's place just above Finlay Forks 248 

Slim Cowart's cabin near Mt. Selwyn 256 

Rock Arch on Wicked River 256 



ILLUSTRATIONS xvli 

FACING PACE 

The entrance to Peace River Canyon 264 

Beaver tepee at Hudson's Hope 264 

Looking back at the Rockies from beyond Clearwater . . . 282 

The Peace below Dunvegan 290 

MAPS 



FACING PAGE 



Map of the headwaters of Peace River showing route taken 

by the author 8 

Map of the Quadacha and Long Canyon country .... 154 



ON THE HEADWATERS OF 
PEACE RIVER 

CHAPTER I 
THE MIDDLE PASSAGE 

I REACHED Winnipeg early one July morning after 
the most unpleasant railway journey it had ever been 
my misfortune to experience. Practically the whole of 
the United States was sweltering under a hot wave of 
almost unprecedented severity, and it was not until 
my train neared the Canadian border that a cool breeze 
from the north began to afford relief. A night spent in 
a St. Paul hotel had been the hottest I ever suffered, 
but my stay in that city was somewhat recompensed by 
a long conversation with a charming- old gentleman who 
had settled there in the '50's, when St. Paul was a vil- 
lage and Minneapolis unthought of, and who had many 
interesting anecdotes of the early days, and of his friend 
"Jim" Hill. I also recall, with an enthusiasm that even 
the memory of the heat is unable to dim, a gorgeous 
blood-red sunset on Lake Pepin seen from the car win- 
dow. 

Half a century ago the westward trip from Winnipeg, 
then Fort Garry, across the Great Plains was one of 
unique interest, and was likely to be attended with 
numerous adventures. There were picturesque half- 



2 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

breeds, creaking Red River carts, shaggy buffaloes, prong- 
horned antelopes, wild Crees and Blackfeet; and the 
journey occupied months. To^-day the trip takes a day 
and a night, and after it has been made once it is likely 
to.prove a bit monotonous. When settled, the Canadian 
plains become as tame and unexciting as the Kansas 
prairies, and wheat and oat fields now ripple where 
Poundmaker and other befeathered chieftains once built 
their corrals and slaughtered the buffaloes by thou- 
sands. It is progress, civilization, perhaps, but the 
change half saddens me, for I am not one of those who 
want to see the whole world transformed into market- 
gardens, or staked off into town lots. Where, pray tell 
me, will our descendants two or three generations re- 
moved go to find their wilderness .? 

The monotony of the trip across the plains in the 
present instance was greatly relieved by evidences that 
the country was at war. Winnipeg was full of soldiers 
from Camp Hughes, farther west; there were model 
trenches dug in one of the public squares; dead walls 
were crowded with exhortations to French Canadians, 
Highlanders, Scandinavians, Americans, and even Ice- 
landers to "do their bit" for "King and Country"; 
while every train bore scores of men in uniform. On the 
sleeping-car that carried me westward I made the ac- 
quaintance in the smoking-compartment of one such, 
whom I shall call "Scotty." Scotty was a discharged 
veteran of the immortal " Princess Pats," and previously 
had seen service among the kopjes against the Boers. 
His short, stubby body bore the scars of four wounds 



THE MIDDLE PASSAGE 5 

received in fighting the Germans, and he had lost two 
fingers of one hand, and half of a foot. He told some 
exciting stories of his military experiences, but, being 
somewhat ''lit up,'* seemed prouder of his exploits in 
beating the prohibition laws of Manitoba than of his 
deeds on the battle-field. He also explained with glee 
how he was hoodwinking the doctors in order to obtain 
extra big allowances from the government, and shame- 
lessly declared that he meant to get all he ** could out of 
it." He made it his boast that he was never able to 
keep money, and told with gusto of how he had once 
had nine hundred dollars in a bank, had drawn it out, 
and had run through it in three days. A Winnipeg busi- 
ness man who listened to his story ventured to urge, in 
a fatherly way, that he ought to save his money and 
settle down, but Scotty declared with great determina- 
tion that he meant to die without a cent. 

Alas for a hero ! 

Altogether different in character was another sur- 
vivor of the same regiment, an employee in the Hudson's 
Bay Company's store at Edmonton. He was a tall, 
erect man of perhaps thirty-five, quiet and little inclined 
to talk of the war. By questioning him I ascertained 
that he had lost the sight of one eye in battle, and his 
description of the hell of fire that virtually destroyed 
his regiment did not differ materially from Scotty's. 

"Did you feel that you gave as good as you re- 
ceived ?" I asked him. 

"There were several times when we had good shoot- 
ing," he said, his face lighting up reminiscently. 



4 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

** Twice they came on in mass formation, and we simply 
piled them up in heaps. We considered these oppor- 
tunities a recompense for what we suffered.'* 

The story of the Princess Pats is one of the most 
heroic in the annals of war, and will forever be trea- 
sured in Canadian history. Enlisted largely from among 
men with previous military experience in actual warfare, 
it was early at the front, and bore without flinching pun- 
ishment that few organizations have ever endured. I 
talked with a returned veterinary surgeon who told me 
that once he saw the regiment when it could put only 
78 men in line, and there are stories to the effect that 
at times it was even weaker. 

The Grand Trunk Pacific, on which I was travelling, 
runs diagonally from Winnipeg to Edmonton through 
comparatively new country, and one saw from the car- 
windows occasional evidences of wild life. Now and 
then coveys of prairie-chickens rose from beside the 
track, while the presence of many hawks indicated that 
the chickens did not always enjoy peace and safety even 
during the closed season. The number of hawks one 
sees upon these plains is, indeed, discouragingly large 
from the point of view of the preservation of small game, 
and serves to explain why, now and then, in the fall 
especially, some of the States in the Mississippi Valley 
are full of hawks, both big and little. Fortunately, hawks 
are not an unmixed evil, as they destroy great numbers 
of prairie-dogs, mice, and other vermin. 

Many of the small lakes bore coveys of ducks, some 
of them not yet able to fly, while now and again the 



THE MIDDLE PASSAGE 5 

traveller beheld a musquash, that is, a muskrat, swim- 
ming through the water, usually with a bunch of grass 
or straw in his mouth. Some of the muskrat houses on 
these lakes are as large as many beaver lodges I have 
seen. A few of the lakes are so heavily impregnated 
with alkali that they are avoided not only by animals, 
but also by the ducks and other water-fowl. 

If time had permitted I should have liked to stop 
for a day or two at Wainwright to visit the great Canadian 
wild-animal park. We saw the park from a distance, 
but could distinguish no animals. The park now con- 
tains the largest herd of American buffaloes in the world, 
about two thousand, to say nothing of moose, antelope, 
and other animals. The buffaloes represent, in the main 
at least, the celebrated Pablo herd, which the United 
States parsimoniously permitted to be sold to Canada 
and sent beyond our borders. 

Our train finally reached Edmonton at ten o'clock 
in the evening, and, as this was to be my last chance at 
the *' flesh-pots" for many weeks, I put up at a new pa- 
latial hotel erected by one of the railroad companies. 
When I sallied out next morning I found a different 
Edmonton from that with which I had become ac- 
quainted six years before. Then it was the "jumping- 
off place" for the North and West, and most clerks had 
some personal knowledge of what any one Intending a 
trip into the bush needed; now it differed little from other 
towns, and the clerks were like all other clerks, and had 
little knowledge of canoes, tents, or guns — of anything 
but prices, which were high. 



6 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

As one beholds the miles and miles of paved streets 
and splendid buildings, it seems incredible that, even in 
my own lifetime, Edmonton was merely a fur post be- 
neath whose palisaded walls wild Crees and Blackfeet 
waylaid and scalped each other. 

In view of the fact that the trip by water would be 
more than a thousand miles long, that some of the streams 
were shallow, that many rapids must be run and frequent 
portages made, I had already decided that I must have a 
light, canvas-covered canoe about eighteen feet long, and 
capable of carrying two men and a considerable load. 
In correspondence earlier in the year I had been assured 
that the supply of canoes in Edmonton was unlimited; 
great, therefore, was my disgust when I learned that 
there was not in the whole city a canvas-covered canoe, 
of the usual type, more than sixteen feet long. I had 
about decided to take an ordinary basswood Peterbor- 
ough when I heard of a company down on the Saskatche- 
wan that had, according to the story, an overstock of 
canvas canoes. Much elated, I hurried down the long, 
steep hill to the river, to find that the craft in question 
were really Chestnut sponson canoes, seventeen feet long. 
Now it had never been my intention to take a sponson 
canoe on the trip, but the man in charge was insistent 
that I should look one of the boats over, and I did so. 
She was a stanch, beautiful little craft, weighing about 
ninety pounds, capable of carrying six or seven hun- 
dred pounds and two men, a bit too low in the sides for 
rough water, but safe and sure to float in case she ever 
should fill. She was not just what I wanted; I realized 



THE MIDDLE PASSAGE 7 

that with all our stuff aboard she would ride pretty low, 
but I knew a way of keeping out the swells, and she 
seemed to come the nearest my requirements of any- 
thing available, so I took her. 

Most of my provisions and other stuff I bought at the 
Hudson's Bay store, which in Edmonton is merely a big 
department store that does not differ greatly from similar 
stores in other cities. I picked up a few articles else- 
where, and had brought others from the States. As 
we were going on a trip where every ounce would count, 
and where everything used must be carried along, I 
had given the subject considerable care. The completed 
outfit, besides the canoe, included the following articles: 

One Winchester .401 automatic rifle, equipped with 
Lyman sights. I had owned this gun for six years, and 
was familiar with its advantages and weaknesses. Like 
all rifles. It is more suitable for some kinds of work than 
for others, but, on the whole, it is a good weapon in the 
hands of one who understands it. For small game I 
had brought with me an old Remington .32 rim-fire rifle 
and a hundred long cartridges. I had had this rifle 
many years, and had killed a great variety of game with it. 
To my mind a weapon of this sort is better for small game 
than a .22, as it does not tear too much of a hole, will 
shoot farther, and can be used, at a pinch, on large game. 

One 3A Graflex camera. This also was an old com- 
panion, and with it I had done some fair work, not be- 
cause I am a good photographer, but because I had an 
excellent machine. My mistake on this trip was to 
underestimate its capacities. Such a camera is, of 



8 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

course, rather heavy for mountain work, its weight being 
about four and a half pounds. The leather case that the 
manufacturers furnish for it leaves much to be desired 
as a means of protection against either shocks or water, 
and at home I had made a box out of some clear poplar 
boards, and had covered it with canvas and fitted it with 
carrying straps. This box proved a great success, and 
served to lift a heavy load of anxiety off my mind, for 
the camera was really the most essential article of the 
trip. The box also furnished a handy receptacle for 
numerous other small articles. Most of the films were 
in water-tight tins. 

One 7>^ x yj^ forester tent of balloon-silk, weight 
about four and a half pounds. These tents are open in 
front, but I took along a spare piece of canvas, which was 
useful as a tarpaulin and was available to keep out rain 
when the wind was uncertain and shifting. The tent 
was a bit small, but there was room for two in it and also 
for a couple of pack-sacks. For protection against mos- 
quitoes I took along plenty of cheese-cloth. Ordinary 
mosquito-netting is unsatisfactory, as the mesh is made 
too large. 

A cooking outfit that would "nest" and a Hudson's 
Bay axe. I left the buying of a small axe until I got to 
Prince George, and then had to be content with a hatchet, 
as there were no good small axes in stock. 

A Bristol fishing-rod, with plenty of spoons, flies, and 
other tackle. This rod had seen much active service, 
in particular against the hardy bass and muskallonge 
of Georgian Bay and French River. 








» 










o 






o 




3» 




2 


° 


G RO 

Route 
Night 


'-d 


O 


t 


1=^ c 


m 


": 


''I 


- 1 K 

1 ^ "^ 
1. > 


n 


H 


' i 


r 


pi 




PI 

> 






:r 03 


-r* 


D 






■? '<l 


W 


^ 






i-^S 


J53 


> 






w 




m 






>■ 




60 
en 












■^i 




o 
to 







THE MIDDLE PASSAGE 9 

In the way of bedding I took a canvas ground-cloth, 
a Hght blanket, a heavy blanket, and plenty of big 
blanket pins for use in improvising a sleeping-bag. In 
the way of clothing I had an alleged water-proof suit of 
a much-advertised brand. The coat proved helpful in 
wet weather, though far from being capable of turning 
a big rain, but the trousers were almost worthless, as 
they rustle too much to hunt in, will not keep out the 
water from wet bush, and wear in holes in a few days of 
real work. However, I had along another pair of ordi- 
nary khaki to hunt in. I also had plenty of woollen 
underclothing, two heavy woollen shirts, and a sweater. 
For footwear I had a pair of ordinary street shoes and a 
pair of excellent shoepacks. I intended to lay in at Fort 
Grahame a supply of moccasins for hunting purposes. 

The food supply was ample and varied. As most of 
the trip would be by canoe, I took along more heavy 
canned stuff, particularly canned fruit and tomatoes, than 
I would otherwise have done. At the other end of the 
scale, as regards weight, I had brought from the States 
a considerable quantity of dehydrated stuff for use par- 
ticularly in the mountains. The most worthless thing 
I took was an immense can of ground mustard, which I 
bought by weight, "sight unseen," without realizing how 
much I was getting. At the end of the trip the can was 
still intact, and I joyfully gave it to a friend. From the 
States I had brought a number of water-proof bags and 
several empty friction-top tins of varying sizes, and they 
proved invaluable for keeping the food dry and in good 
condition. 



10 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

The real starting-point was the little station of Han- 
sard, on the upper Eraser beyond the Rockies, 1,235 miles 
northwest of Winnipeg, 442 miles west of Edmonton, 
and 46 miles east of Prince George (formerly Fort 
George). The canoe and the rest of the stuff, except my 
personal baggage and a few other articles that I took 
with me, were to follow on the next Friday's train. 
As for myself, I donned my hunting-clothes, left my others 
at the hotel, and boarded the Wednesday night train for 
Prince George, intending to engage a man for the trip 
at that place and return to Hansard on Saturday in time 
to receive my stuff when it was unloaded. This arrange- 
ment was rendered necessary by reason of the fact that 
Hansard was a mere stop in an unsettled country, and 
had no agent. 



CHAPTER II 
THE PORTAL 

When I awoke and looked out of the car-window 
next morning, I found that we had passed out of the 
settled prairie and were running through a wild and 
sombre region of fen and muskeg, overgrown with co- 
lumnar spruce and lodge-pole pine. In places rushing 
fires had swept over the land, leaving blasted trunks 
standing amid the blackened stumps and prostrate bodies 
of comrades half consumed. The sun had just begun 
dimly to lighten the world, and to the far northwestward 
appeared a long row of what at first I was certain were 
jagged mountains, but which ultimately proved to be 
merely masses of low clouds. 

We were passing through a region that had old asso- 
ciations for me, and I kept a keen outlook for familiar 
scenes. Six years before I had ridden to the town of 
Wolf Creek on the first construction-train that had ever 
run through to Edson, and later I had started from 
Edson with a pack-train for a trip to the Brazeau coun- 
try and Mount Dalhousie. Then Wolf Creek had for 
some months been the end-of-steel, and was a place of 
considerable importance. In the preceding winter hun- 
dreds of town lots had been sold to hopeful Eastern in- 
vestors, and the place had been a Mecca for mosquitoes, 

mules, flies, ox-teams, navvies, and gamblers. But Ed- 

II 



12 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

son, eight miles farther west, had become track's-end; 
Wolf Creek's boom was "busted," and Wolf Creek's 
population was moving on. 

"What is the price of real estate in this burg?" I 
asked a storekeeper who was about to join the emigra- 
tion. 

"I gave three hundred and fifty dollars for this lot," 
he said with a grin. "Seeing it's you, you may have it 
for fifty dollars." 

"Seeing it's I, I suppose one sawbuck would buy it," 
I returned. 

And he grinned again. 

When Wolf Creek presently came in sight I found 
my expectations realized. The first beams of the morn- 
ing sun shining through the waste of spruce showed that 
of all the huts, shacks, and Waldorf Astorias hardly one 
log remained upon another; the only building that con- 
tinued intact was a tiny white church set well back from 
the road, and half hidden by a copse of young jack-pine. 
Even it had neither worshippers nor mourners, for Wolf 
Creek was now neither a habitation nor even a name. 
The only living thing visible was a crow perched like an 
image carved in jet upon the blackened top of a blasted 
pine. 

The fate of Wolf Creek is typical of scores of other 
little towns upon new railroads. If one were to search 
among the ruins of such towns, he would find the neglected 
graves of those who fell in aiding the march of the iron 
horse to the Pacific. Many who perished thus were 
victims of the carelessness of others, for rarely, in this 



THE PORTAL 13 

age of the world, has a great undertaking been conducted 
with so little attention to health and sanitation as was 
the building of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. Filth 
and garbage collected undisturbed; flies made their 
deadly rounds, and many of the camps were simply rotten 
with typhoid and other diseases. Women who braved 
the hardships suffered most of all. When the hard times 
came, following the completion of the road, men were 
wont to say: "Things are dull indeed. Why, we aren't 
even burying any more women !" 

The region beyond Wolf Creek also called up mem- 
ories, for it was there that on my previous trip I had 
first caught sight of the Canadian Rockies. With Jimmy 
Paul, a Cree half-breed, I was riding a cayuse from Wolf 
Creek to Edson, when from the top of a divide I beheld 
the tooth-like summits of a mighty range. Far off they 
were, fifty miles at least to the nearest, but very close 
they looked, towering up beyond the green sea of foot- 
hills. It was a clear afternoon, and one could see peaks 
southward beyond Banff and far northward up in the 
Smoky River country — four hundred miles of snow- 
capped mountains in a single mighty sweep. 

When the train reached Edson I looked the place 
over with as much interest as I had Wolf Creek. When 
I had been there before, Edson was to be a great city. 
A square mile of muskeg — a peculiarly villainous kind 
of swamp — had been surveyed into lots and placed on 
the Eastern markets when I passed through westward; 
another square mile was being surveyed when I re- 
turned. Lots were sold in large numbers in Eastern 



14 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

Canada, the United States, Europe, and even South 
America, and the price of some of the choicest was sev- 
eral thousand dollars. But the construction gangs 
passed on, and with them departed Edson's prosperity 
and all except a few hundred of its population. 

A few miles beyond Edson we crossed the long trestle 
bridge over the McLeod at the "Big Eddy," the point 
where six years before our pack-train had turned off the 
right of way toward the Brazeau country. Presently 
we were among the foot-hills, and were running along 
but far above the turbid Athabasca, which even here is 
a considerable river. Soon we entered the confines of 
Jasper Park and passed through the gateway guarded 
by Boule Roche Mountain and Roche a Perdrix, with the 
mighty cliff of Roche Miette not far beyond. In places 
the Athabasca broadens into Alpine lakes, Brule Lake and 
Jasper Lake. Near Brule Lake bubbles the Miette Hot 
Springs, of which much will be heard in years to come. 
I watched the changing scene with rapt interest. It 
seemed as if this were my kingdom, and that after long 
years of absence I was once more entering in ! 

The day was stormy, and now and then clouds drove 
down upon the peaks, veiling them from view. Again 
the clouds were swept aside, and I was able to see enough 
to convince me that Jasper Park and Mount Robson Park, 
the latter just across the provincial boundary-line in 
British Columbia, will ultimately be among the favorite 
playgrounds of the Continent. These parks contain hot 
springs, cascades, swift rivers, beautiful lakes, tangled 
forests, great glaciers, and mighty snow-capped peaks. 



THE PORTAL 15 

while in their fastnesses roam black and grizzly bears, 
caribou, moose, mountain-sheep, and mountain-goats, and 
their tumbling streams abound with trout. 

The station of Jasper, which in time will doubtless 
be surrounded by many huge hotels, lies in an amphi- 
theatre surrounded by tall peaks, among them Mount 
Geikie, Pyramid Mountain, and Mount Edith Cavell, 
the last named after the heroic English nurse. The site 
of Henry House, a famous fur post of the long ago, lies 
not far back, and the Athabasca flows just at hand. 

On leaving the Athabasca, which rises in a mighty 
wilderness of peaks to southward, we thundered west- 
ward up the tumbling Miette toward Yellowhead Pass. 
Years before, from a high divide, I had beheld this pass, 
which looked as if some mighty Titan had hewed it 
out of the barrier wall with a giant axe, but never before 
had I been within the portal. The ascent to the pass is 
so imperceptible that one is not conscious, unless told, 
that he has actually reached the summit. In one spot 
the headwaters of two streams mingle; one stream emp- 
ties into Athabascan and Arctic waters, while the other 
flows into the Eraser, and thus its water reaches the 
Pacific. 

The Grand Trunk makes a great point of the fact 
that it crosses the mountains at a low elevation, and that 
the grade is never excessively steep. The promoters of 
the road expected to carry to and from the terminal at 
Prince Rupert a large share of the products of and sup- 
plies needed by the Prairie Provinces. It was believed, 
for example, that it would be cheaper to carry wheat 



1 6 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

westward from Alberta and Saskatchewan, and thence 
send it by water through the Panama Canal, than to ship 
it to the Great Lakes and the Eastern seaboard. Inas- 
much as the cost of carrying a bushel of wheat from 
Edmonton even to Lake Superior is more than twenty 
cents, it is clear that here was a problem the solution of 
which would bring the solver big dividends. It was this 
pressing transportation problem that caused the Cana- 
dian Government to extend so much aid to the Grand 
Trunk Pacific, and to the Canadian Northern, and also 
to engage in the construction of a railway to Hudson's 
Bay. 

About the time that the Grand Trunk Pacific was 
ready to carry freight to the west coast the Great War 
burst upon the world. The British blockade and the 
German submarines soon produced such a shortage of 
merchant shipping that the scheme of cheap carriage of 
freight from Prince Rupert by way of the Pacific and 
Panama fell through — at least for a time. In conse- 
quence the Grand Trunk Pacific west of Edmonton found 
itself the possessor of a magnificent road-bed, but compar- 
atively little traffic. The road runs through an immense 
territory that as yet contains only a few thousand in- 
habitants, who produce little and import little. When 
peace comes, when the shipping of the world has once 
more been restored and rates have fallen to normal, the 
original hope may be realized. In course of time, also, 
the country along the line will become more thickly pop- 
ulated, and this will make business. There is much good 
fir, spruce, and cedar timber in the Eraser valley, and 




Reproduced by courtesy of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. 

A GLIMPSE OF Mt. Edith Cavell. 



THE PORTAL 17 

this win be in demand on the prairies. This business 
alone will make a vast amount of freight. The region the 
road opens up is an empire in itself, with limitless nat- 
ural resources. 

I am confident that even the most blase traveller 
could not avoid becoming enthusiastic over the views 
within and beyond the pass. Here alone was sufficient 
magnificent scenery for half a dozen trips, but to me it 
could only be a sort of prelude on which I could bestow 
a few hasty glances. Great snow-capped peaks tower 
up on every hand, while beside and beneath the road 
the Fraser River, quickly become a considerable stream, 
goes tumbling down a rocky chute so steep that one is 
inevitably reminded of a flight of stairs. 

The immensity of the mighty mountain mass called 
British Columbia is not generally understood. Within 
it twenty Switzerlands could be set down, and there 
would still be room for England, Scotland, and one or 
two other European countries. 

The supreme spectacle is, of course. Mount Robson. 
This mighty rock mass, 13,068 feet high and said to be 
the tallest in the Canadian Rockies, towers up not far 
from the railway, and passenger-trains stop at a favor- 
able point in order to enable passengers to obtain a view 
of the monster. When we stopped, the mountain, for 
the most part, was veiled by misty clouds, but here and 
there one could catch glimpses of portions of the mas- 
sive, serrated peak. Just after the train moved on- 
ward the clouds parted for a moment and I was lucky 
enough to catch a glimpse of what was evidently almost 



I8 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

the very top. I am not sure but that the spectacle was 
more impressive so, for the clouds gave an air of mys- 
tery, of untold possibilities. 

To westward for two hundred miles the Eraser River, 
through whose valley the railway runs, flows between 
two mighty mountain walls, and there are scores and 
scores of peaks that go far above timber-line and even 
above the snow-line. The celebrated English novelist, 
Sir Rider Haggard, had passed through the country only 
a few weeks before, and one of these peaks had been 
named in his honor. As one travels farther west the 
peaks gradually become lower and, of course, are less 
impressive. 

I enjoyed the scenery along the route, though I must 
admit that I did not experience the fierce pleasure that I 
did later. There is as much difference between viewing 
mountains from a car-window or the top of a coach and 
travelling among them on foot or with a pack-train as 
there is between seeing a beautiful woman on the other 
side of the street and being married to her. 

The Eraser becomes navigable for canoes a little 
above Tete Jaune Cache, but between this place and 
Prince George there are numerous rapids and canyons, 
in particular the Grand Canyon. During construction 
days an immense amount of freight was sent down the 
river in scows, fourteen hundred of these unwieldy craft 
being built for that purpose. Many were the disastrous 
wrecks. The river is lined with the battered timbers of 
scows that came to grief. The number of men who lost 
their lives on the river in this period will never be known. 



THE PORTAL 19 

but it was large, and many were the hairbreadth escapes. 
Old timers tell with particular gusto of a scow loaded 
with filles de joie that hung up for hours on a dangerous 
point; the leader of the party henceforth was known in 
that country as "the Sandbar Queen." Those were 
days of easy money and free spending, which are fondly 
recalled by the now purse-straitened denizens of the 
country. 

Late in the afternoon, after many hours of running 
down the Fraser valley between aisles of cedar, spruce, 
and fir, we reached Prince George. This town stands 
at the junction of the Fraser and the Nechaco, at a 
point where the valley of the Fraser, emerging from the 
mountains, broadens out into a plain, while the Fraser 
itself turns to the south. Alongside stand Fort George 
and South Fort George. Fort George was an old 
Hudson's Bay trading-post, established originally by 
Simon Fraser in 1807. Near by was the village of 
the Indians, but the Indian claim to the land there- 
abouts was bought by the government, and the Indians 
were transferred to a location farther east. South Fort 
George and Prince George were born of the exigencies of 
real-estate speculation. While construction lasted all 
three enjoyed great prosperity. It required twelve bar- 
tenders working in shifts to supply the thirsty navvies 
who swarmed into "Johnson's Hotel" in South Fort 
George, and the receipts over the bar on a single day 
were as high, it is said, as seven thousand dollars. But 
the railway was finished, and the workers scattered to 
the four winds. Now everything, to use the euphemisti- 



20 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

cal term employed by those who remained, was "quiet," 
which meant that business was dead and work scarce. 
However, the place has a big future. 

My most immediate task on reaching Prince George 
was to engage a man to help me on the trip to the North. 
The first requisite in such a man was, of course, that he 
should "know water," that is, should be a good canoe- 
man. I hoped to find one who was also familiar with 
at least a part of the route that must be travelled, 
though this was not absolutely essential. Prince George 
has become one of the main outfitting points for the 
trappers and prospectors who operate on Peace River 
headwaters, and I found that there were several of these 
in town whose services could be obtained. News that a 
stranger from the outside was wanting such a man 
spread rapidly through the little burg, and within a few 
hours I had met a number of good fellows who would 
have been glad to go with me and whom I should have 
been glad to take along. But my plans contemplated 
taking only one other person, at least as far as Finlay 
Forks, and he was soon engaged. 

His name was Joe Lavoie, and he was a native of 
Quebec, though most of his boyhood had been spent in 
Fall River, Massachusetts. About the time he attained 
manhood he had joined an older brother in the lumber- 
camps of Washington; subsequently the two had drifted 
over the international boundary-line into British Colum- 
bia. For about fifteen years Joe had engaged in pros- 
pecting, trapping, and other border pursuits. Prior to 
the building of the railroad he had been provincial fire- 



THE PORTAL 21 

warden of the region between Quesnel and Tete Jaune 
Cache, and had made his long rounds alone in a canoe 
on the wild waters of the upper Fraser. Those who 
knew him declared that no better canoeman could be 
found. He had spent the previous winter trapping in 
the country across Peace River from Mount Selwyn, 
and he told me that he had been as far up Finlay River 
as Fort Grahame. I presume that he did not mean the 
last statement literally, as it subsequently developed 
that he had only been about half-way thither. As he 
owned a pre-emption and a graphophone at Finlay Forks 
and possessed a roving disposition, he was quite willing 
to return to that region, and we quickly came to terms. 

Next morning, for the sum of one hundred dollars, I 
secured a hunting license from the local provincial au- 
thorities, and, having performed the two tasks that had 
brought me to Prince George, I would have been ready 
early the next day, Friday, to return to Hansard, the 
real starting-point of the "expedition," but there was 
no train till Saturday morning, so we had perforce to 
wait till then. 

However, the hotel at which I was staying was a 
fairly comfortable one and there were many interesting 
characters to talk to. Among those I met first was a 
certain Witt, who the preceding winter had trapped far 
up the Finlay and who now, bringing his Siwash dog, 
had come out to sell his fur and buy his outfit for the 
next winter. Witt was a native of Germany, and he 
told me that for years he had lived in the dirt and squalor 
of New York's lower East Side. It certainly is a far 



22 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

cry from the sights, sounds, and smells of that congested 
district to the silent mountains, lonely valleys, and 
boundless forests of British Columbia. From him I 
obtained considerable information concerning the Fin- 
lay country and could have got more, but Lavoie assured 
me that Witt had really never been in the country to 
which we were going, and that he was not to be trusted. 
Subsequently I found that what Witt had told me was 
undoubtedly based on first-hand knowledge. I also 
learned that he and Lavoie had had trouble. 

While I was in Hood's store making a few last addi- 
tions to our outfit, I happened to hear a man say that 
one of the Norboe brothers was in town. The name 
stirred old memories, and I inquired: 

"Is one of the Norboe brothers named Mack.?" 

No one could answer, but a bit later I was passing a 
feed store when I saw inside a slender man of perhaps 
sixty whose face — or rather picture — I was sure I had 
seen before. I stepped within and said to him: 

"Does your name happen to be Norboe .?" 

He turned to me in mild surprise and said: "Yes, 
it is." 

"Did you ever go out with a man named Hornaday 
and a man named Phillips and help photograph some 
mountain-goats ?" 

"I surely did," he answered, his eyes lighting up. 

In a word, I had happened upon Mack Norboe, who 
some years before had helped John Phillips to secure by 
all odds the most remarkable mountain-goat pictures 
ever taken. These pictures were afterward published 



THE PORTAL 23 

in Hornaday's Camp-Fires in the Canadian Rockies, a 
book that I have enjoyed as much as any hunting-book 
ever printed. 

He told me that he and his brother had left the Elk 
River country in Kootenay, where they guided Phillips 
and Hornaday, and were now located at Penny in the 
Eraser country, a hundred miles or so east of Prince 
George. They are still guiding hunters who have "lost 
bears," and Mr. Mack Norboe told me that they had 
found a splendid country, high and open, with little 
lakes, a country into which horses can go and where 
there are plenty of moose and bears. He also told me 
that Charlie Smith, whom every reader of Hornaday's 
book will remember, now has rheumatism so badly that 
he has been compelled to give up life in the open, and 
that, through the influence of Phillips, he is engaged in 
boy-scout work in Pittsburgh. "Grizzly Smith*' he is 
called by the boys, and great is the success of his stories 
of adventure told round the camp-fires of the scouts. 

The Norboes are types of the kind of guides who see 
to it that their patrons have such a good time that the 
patrons ever afterward consider them as lifelong friends, 
and sometimes — it has happened to Mack two or three 
times — pay their expenses East so that they can show 
the guides a good time in the haunts of men. Beginning 
life in Texas, the Norboes gradually moved northward, 
working as cattlemen in the buffalo days and later as 
trappers, prospectors, and guides, until at last they find 
themselves on the upper Eraser. 

Another exceedingly pleasant acquaintance I made 



24 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

at the hotel was a gentleman named George McFarlane 
Anderson, a native of Scotland, a resident of Victoria, 
and now engaged in overseeing the construction of a 
bridge over the Eraser or Nechaco, I forget which. Mr. 
Anderson had long been stationed in India, and he 
showed me the most interesting collection of pictures of 
that country I have ever seen. He enjoys the distinction 
of having been the first man to introduce khaki from 
India into England, and he also has a novel theory to 
the effect that the Ophir of King Solomon was located 
in Malabar. 

My man Lavoie, who had registered at the hotel, 
spent the last evening with some friends, celebrating his 
coming departure in their own way, and so successfully 
that I fear that if we had been starting that night we 
would have come to grief in the first rapid. 

Next morning, having bidden my new friends good- 
by, I took the east-bound train, along with Lavoie, and 
we soon covered the forty miles or so back to Hansard. 
I had been led to suppose that the station at Hansard 
stood on a small creek that empties almost immediately 
into the Eraser, but I found that the creek is really 
about three-quarters of a mile from the station. The 
station itself is a small wooden building, and there was 
no agent, but a Roumanian section-boss and two of his 
men and the wife of one of them lived in a part of the 
building. The room intended for the use of passengers 
was literally crammed full of mosquitoes, and", leaving 
our baggage there, we were glad to hurry out into the 
open air. 



THE PORTAL 25 

As there was a wait of about eight hours before the 
west-bound train was due with our canoe and other out- 
fit, we took my small rifle and walked eastward up the 
track a mile or so and crossed the bridge over the Fraser. 
The country a hundred feet from the track was a perfect 
wilderness, and there were impudent whiskey-jacks flit- 
ting about and uttering their harsh squawk, which 
sounds more like " Wah k-e-e-e I'* than anything else I 
can put down on paper. Having a grudge against these 
thieving birds of old, I shot one of them for luck, and 
we also did some target practice at objects in the river. 
I was rather surprised to see a humming-bird, as I had 
never read of their going so far north. One naturally 
associates humming-birds with orchids and other tropical 
things; they seem exotic even in the Ohio valley, while 
in the Far North they are altogether out of place. And 
yet we were to see them far up the Finlay. 

Mosquitoes were very bad, but I discovered that by 
letting down the back of my "cape cap" — intended to 
keep off rain — I could prevent them from cultivating a 
close acquaintance with my neck. Ripe red raspberries 
were numerous in patches along the track, and they 
served to eke out the simple lunch of bread and canned 
beef that we had brought along from Prince George. 
We expected to cook a royal supper out of the provisions 
coming from Edmonton. 

After being cooped up so long on trains It was a great 
relief to me to be in the woods, and even Joe seemed to 
enjoy himself. I found him very lively and full of anec- 
dotes, while now and then his bubbling spirits would 



26 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

burst over in snatches of song about ''Molly Maclntyre" 
or about a certain swain who 

"loved Miss Molly Malone 
And longed for the time he could make her his own." 

In the afternoon we carried our dunnage bags and 
other stuff down the track to the bank of the little creek. 
On leaving Edmonton I had been careful to bring along 
the silk tent and some cheese-cloth, besides most of my 
bedding, and, of course, Joe had his blankets. We 
pitched the tent, rigged up a cheese-cloth front to foil the 
mosquitoes, and otherwise made what preparations we 
could for the night. We expected to bring the rest of 
our stuff to the camp that night, and to set out down 
the Eraser early next morning for Giscome Portage. 

Great, therefore, was our disappointment when the 
train pulled into the station to discover that only the 
canoe had come. Some Dummkopf in the express office 
at Edmonton had held up the rest of the outfit on the 
ground that there was no express agent at Hansard, 
and no one to receive the express and see that it was 
duly paid for. Advance payment had been impossible 
because when I left Edmonton the stuff had not yet 
reached the express office. I had foreseen some such 
complication and had not only explained the case to the 
expressmen but had got three men to promise faithfully 
that they would see to it that there were no tangles ! 
We were in for a wait of two days at least. This was 
bound to be disagreeable, but the really serious side of 
the matter lay in the fact that we had a long and hard 



THE PORTAL 27 

journey before us, with a short season in which to do it, 
and the loss of even two days might prove a serious 
matter. 

The only gleam of sunshine in the situation was that 
the canoe had come, and the conductor of the train was 
kind enough to carry her to the creek and put her off 
there. We launched her that very evening and took a 
short spin on the river. She paddled beautifully, while 
the sponsons made her exceptionally steady. 

Luckily I had brought along some compressed tea in 
my dunnage bag and also some empty friction-top tins. 
We brewed tea in one of the tins and managed to make 
a passable supper with it and part of the bread and 
meat. As we had brought only two loaves of bread and 
a small can of meat, it looked as if we were thrown on 
our own resources very early in the game, for there were 
no stores or settlements for many miles. 

"Maybe we can buy a little grub of the section-boss," 
said Joe as we were eating. 

"We'll see first if we can't live off the country," I re- 
sponded. "There are plenty of berries, and perhaps we 
can kill some game along the river." 

"I think we can get a beaver, sure," Joe declared. 
"They are good meat, fat and greasy. I like them, and 
have eaten many." 

I had made the express agent on the train promise 
to telegraph to Edmonton to forward the stuff by the 
next west-bound train, so there remained nothing that 
could be done except to wait and hope that the snarl 
would be untangled. 



28 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

That night black clouds piled up in vast, black masses 
in the west; lightning flashed and thunder roared; every 
moment we expected the heavens to open and whirling 
sheets of rain to fall, but only a few scattered drops pat- 
tered down on the tent roof. Gradually the uproar of 
the elements died away, and we heard no sound save 
the soughing of the wind through the sombre woods and 
the monotonous hum of myriads of mosquitoes. 

Next morning, after a meagre breakfast, we took the 
canoe and set off up the river. The Eraser, even this 
far up, is a big stream, two or three hundred yards wide, 
and so deep as to be utterly unfordable. It flows briskly 
between unbroken walls of tall spruce and fir, mingled 
with a few cottonwoods, and the banks are in most places 
overhung with a thick growth of alders and red and yel- 
low willows. So thickly do these bushes grow that in 
many places it is almost impossible to make a landing, 
and the woods upon the banks are for the most part so 
densely covered with undergrowth, including the prickly 
devil's club (Fatsia horrida), that travel through them is 
exceedingly difl^icult. Ordinary hunting in such a region 
is manifestly impossible; practically all the game killed 
is either shot from a canoe or by watching some lake or 
slough. The water is full of silt, and fishing with a 
rod is useless, though it is said that good catches can be 
made with set lines. Salmon ascend the river in small 
numbers this far; in fact, a "run" was then on, though 
we were able to see few signs of it. 

Repeatedly we saw fresh beaver cuttings and the 
tracks of the animals in the soft mud of the banks. 



THE PORTAL 29 

Twice also we saw where a big moose had ploughed 
through the willows and alders and down the bank and 
then had plunged into the river. There was a chance 
that we might see one of the beasts himself, and, though 
I would not, even in our existing lack of food, have shot 
a moose at that time, I would have welcomed a bear 
most joyously. 

We had passed well beyond the bridge and were pad- 
dling along near the edge of one of the infrequent sand- 
bars when I noticed an animal moving in a fringe of 
young willows. I called Joe's attention to it. 

"It's a little bear," he whispered confidently. 

But even as he spoke I recognized the slow, draggling 
gait and knew it was a porcupine. Joe quickly realized 
his mistake, but he was strongly in favor of my shooting 
the animal. 

"I have eaten them often," he declared. **They are 
good meat." 

Now, on another trip in the Canadian Rockies one of 
my packers had killed a porcupine, and I had watched 
the rest of the party devour the animal with seeming 
relish, but I could not bring myself to taste the greasy 
mess. However, I thought that at least Joe would find 
the animal savory, so I hastily sprang ashore, ran up 
the bar, and headed the porcupine off just as he was 
about to disappear in the thick forest. A bullet from 
my .32 soon ended his career. 

"Assassination number one!" laughed Joe, gingerly 
holding up the animal by one leg. 

It was not a feat in which to take pride, but anyway 



30 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

the beast was fat, so we carried him out to the edge of 
the bar, and Joe proceeded to divest him of his skin, a 
rather tickhsh task on account of the sharp quills, and 
also one that was rendered doubly disagreeable by clouds 
of inquisitive mosquitoes. 

When the job was completed we put the carcass in 
the canoe and continued up the river. We must have 
gone up six or eight miles, but, though we paddled into 
several likely looking sloughs and passed among some 
islands that bore plenty of moose and bear tracks, we 
saw no other animals of any size, and our only further 
spoil consisted of some fine red raspberries that we 
found around an old construction-camp and proceeded to 
"can" on the spot. 

On the way back we came upon a red squirrel swim- 
ming the river. He was already nine-tenths of the way 
across the flood, and, of course, my camera was not ready 
for service. We ran the canoe between him and the 
shore and even tried to turn him back with our paddles. 
The little fellow's eyes popped out like beads and he was 
evidently thoroughly frightened, but he seemed more 
afraid of swimming back than of us. He climbed right 
over our paddles and kept on with such persistence that 
he reached the bank before the camera was ready. I 
considered the episode much the most interesting hap- 
pening of the day. 

We had already seen two frogs swimming the river. 
The voyage across was nearly three hundred yards, and 
the water was infested by fish that undoubtedly would 
have been pleased to gulp down either frogs or squirrel. 



THE PORTAL 31 

One cannot but wonder what leads such creatures to 
launch out on such perilous journeys. Is it desire for a 
change of food ? For new society ? Or is it mere love 
of adventure and to see new country — the same sort of 
desire that was impelling me to my own long journey ? 
An5rway, I felt a sort of fellow-feeling with the little 
creatures, foolish as I thought them ! 

We reached camp not long after noon, and Joe set 
out to prove the truth of his declaration that porcupine 
is good meat. We did not have any vessel in which the 
animal could be parboiled, but I had brought along my 
aluminum reflector baker, and Joe thought that he could 
roast "porky" very nicely in this. He was not mistaken 
either, and in due time the meal — tea, a little bread, and 
unlimited roast porcupine — was ready. I found that I 
was not very hungry, but I took a thigh and managed 
to get down several bites, though without notable en- 
thusiasm. Joe ate one piece and part of another, but 
even he did not seem to be taking very great enjoyment 
in the feast. 

''How do you like it V I asked, striving to keep my 
face straight. 

He hurled the piece he had been nibbling far from 
him. "It tastes like kerosene," he admitted, grinning. 

He went on to say that he thought there might have 
been something in the pan of the baker that had im- 
parted the flavor, but I think he was mistaken. Porcu- 
pines eat a good deal of spruce bark and similar truck, 
and I suspect that this sort of diet had something to 
do with this animal's peculiar flavor. 



32 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

We gave up our effort to live off the country and in- 
gloriously bought some bologna and bread of the section- 
boss. We left what remained of the porcupine reposing 
in the baker, and that night some animal sneaked into 
camp and carried off most of it. Next day the thief 
tried to repeat the offense, and Joe saw him. The thief 
was a small, bushy-tailed animal, with a white stripe 
running along his back, and he had a hole under the 
railway bridge a few yards from our tent. Joe rashly 
landed a stone in Mephitica's ribs, with the result that 
passage over the bridge became highly unpleasant there- 
after. Luckily, our tent was to windward. 

On a trip down the river that day we saw plenty of 
game signs, including fresh bear tracks within two hun- 
dred yards of camp, and we found plenty of raspberries, 
but had no adventures. These excursions helped, how- 
ever, to pass the time and also served to put my muscles 
in training for the long pull ahead. 

When train time drew near we walked down the 
track to the station. Personally I was hopeful yet also 
pessimistic as to our stuff's coming, for it seemed that 
expressmen who were "dumb" enough not to have for- 
warded it before, were hopeless. 

A pre-emptioner who had a farm some miles down 
the river had brought two crates of strawberries to be 
taken by the train to Prince George, and we bought a 
couple of boxes for two bits. With him was one of his 
sons, a young fellow of perhaps twenty. The family 
were originally from East Tennessee — a far cry — and 
had been in the Eraser country for two or three years. 



THE PORTAL 33 

It was easy, the old man averred, to raise good crops 
once you had the land "chopped out," but he complained 
bitterly of lack of markets. The year before he had 
raised about thirty tons more potatoes than he could 
use, but had been forced to let them rot, as the freight 
rates to the world outside were prohibitive. 

In the winter the father and his sons did a little trap- 
ping and were able to kill enough wild meat for their use. 
Both man and boy had shot moose, but the boy con- 
fessed: "Bears are too fast for me.'* The day before 
they had taken a long shot at a moose wallowing in the 
mouth of the North Fork, which joins the main Fraser 
below and across from their pre-emption. 

The train from the East proved to be late, of course, 
but when it did arrive I was happy to discover that my 
forebodings were like those of the man who said that 
he had had a great deal of trouble in his life and most of 
it never happened. Not only was every article of our 
outfit aboard, but I was also able to buy an Edmonton 
paper containing the latest war news, and — better still — 
there were two good letters from home. 

The conductor of this train also proved obliging. 
He warned us not to tell what he did for us, so I shall 
simply say that we did not have to carry our stuff to the 
creek ! 

We dug into the provisions with eagerness, you may 
be sure, and soon cooked a large and generous "feed.'* 
After supper we got everything in readiness for an early 
start next morning for Giscome Portage, thirty-five miles 
down the river. Then, content with the world, we sat 



34 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

round the camp-fire until drowsiness and the mosquitoes 
drove us inside our tent. 

In the vernacular of the Northwest everything was 
"jake," which being translated into the President's 
English means "O. K." 



CHAPTER III 
FROM PACIFIC TO ARCTIC WATERS 

Travelling in a canoe has a number of advantages 
over travelling with a pack-train. For example, one 
does not have to catch his means of transport every 
morning — perhaps three miles from camp — nor worry 
about feed. It is far easier to load an outfit into a canoe 
than it is to rope it on the backs of half a dozen cayuses; 
nor is it usually necessary entirely to unload the canoe 
at night — and often at noon — as is the case with pack- 
horses. Consequently the problem of getting an early 
start is much less difficult with a canoe than with horses. 

Even when we broke camp at Hansard, though we 
were loading the canoe for the first time, we managed to 
do it pretty expeditiously. When we had done so we 
found that our expectation that we had a big load for 
such a craft was fully realized. The load was all the 
bigger because Joe was taking a sixty or seventy pound 
case of Wagstaff's jam to his friend Peterson at Finlay 
Forks, while his own personal baggage and bedding were 
double in weight what I had ever before seen a guide 
carry. In fact, when we had everything stowed, includ- 
ing ourselves, we had no more than three inches of free- 
board, and to an observer a little distance away it would 
have seemed that we were running awash. In fact, the 
canoe rode so low that Joe declared : 

"She looks like a U-boat about to dive." 

35 



36 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

"We'll call her The Submarine ^'^ said I. 

However, the sponsons made her as steady as a 
church, and I knew that even if she should fill she could 
not sink, while we had a plan for keeping out rough 
water when the need should come. 

"All ready!" said Joe a little after seven o'clock. 

For the fourth time we looked round our deserted 
camp site to make sure that we were leaving nothing 
except the mosquitoes, and then Joe stepped aboard. 
It seemed to me that it was a moment that ought to be 
chronicled in enduring form, so I fired two shots at the 
outfit with my Graflex. Then I took my place in the 
bow and our thousand-mile canoe trip began. 

There is an exhilaration about a start on a trip of 
this kind, and we felt it to the full. Though dire prophe- 
cies had been uttered of disasters that would befall us, 
we felt confident of our ability to pull ourselves through 
every situation. Long vistas of magnificent possibilities 
lay before us: delectable mountains, hungry fish, obliging 
bears, toothsome caribou, festive goats ! 

To work our way down the little creek and out on 
the river required no more than twenty strokes of our 
paddles. Joe then steered our craft out into the cur- 
rent, we put our backs to the paddles, and soon we were 
shooting down the river at what, considering our load, 
was a rattling speed. According to the best accounts, 
it was thirty-five miles to Giscome Portage by river. 
We hoped to reach there by a little after noon and, if 
luck favored us, to have our goods hauled across so that 
we could camp on the shore of Summit Lake that night. 



FROM PACIFIC TO ARCTIC WATERS 37 

Both of us were in high spirits, and Joe broke again and 
again into his favorite songs. 

A few miles of steady paddhng brought us to the pre- 
emption of our friend from East Tennessee, and I landed 
for a minute to take a look at his outfit and to wave him 
farewell as he picked strawberries from among his luxu- 
riant vines. We passed a number of small islands and 
the mouth of the slough that drains Hansard and Aleza 
Lakes, and we gazed with interest at the mouth of the 
North Fork, or, as it is sometimes called, the Salmon 
River. Some idea of the newness of the country can be 
obtained from the fact that on the latest maps of the 
Prince George district the course of this river, except 
for the last few miles, is represented by dotted lines. 
To the north of the upper Eraser and to the south of it 
also, for that matter, there are great stretches of country 
that have not yet been really explored. 

I had expected to see ducks along the Eraser, but in 
our trips upon it we did not see a single one. In fact, 
the river was singularly devoid of bird life. We saw two 
or three gulls, and there were a few kingfishers and 
plenty of tiny tip-ups, that is, sandpipers, which ran up 
and down the edge of the water bowing politely to us 
and uttering their hIgh-C little cries. These birds were 
to be almost constant companions on every stream we 
navigated. 

Perhaps twenty miles below Hansard, as we were 
paddling along a hundred feet from the left bank, which 
was ten or a dozen feet high and thickly overgrown with 
trees and red willows, I heard a crackling among the 



38 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

bushes. Thinking that the noise might be made by a 
bear, I caught up one of my rifles, which was lying in the 
bow, and as I did so saw a large moose standing on the 
bank. The animal's head and neck were hidden behind 
a spruce, and I was unable to see whether or not it was 
a bull or a cow. Had I been so minded I could by quick 
work have landed a bullet in its anatomy, but, of course, 
had no thought of doing so. I did, however, want its 
picture, but it almost immediately moved out of sight 
in the thick bush, and, though we paddled up and down 
the shore for a few minutes, we saw it no more. The 
episode was most pleasurable, and the sight so early in 
the trip of a great wild beast seemed to augur favorably 
for the future. 

Toward noon the character of the country began to 
change. The mountains, which had been far distant 
from the river about Hansard, began to pinch in once 
more, and we saw one on the north bank that is said 
to be an almost sure find for caribou. Groves of slender, 
tall, white poplar became common, and in places the 
banks of the river rose in almost sheer walls. The trem- 
bling, light-green leaves of the poplars contrasted with 
the dark-green foliage of the spruce and fir; and the play 
of colors was the more pronounced because the day, 
which had begun with a bright sun, had turned cloudy 
and stormy. From time to time black thunder-heads 
threatened to pour a deluge down upon us, but we were 
lucky enough not to be in their path, and, though we 
saw much rain fall, we escaped except for a few scattered 
drops. 



FROM PACIFIC TO ARCTIC WATERS 39 

"When we turn the bend at the end of this reach 
we'll see the portage," Joe announced a little after 
noon. "It lies at the west end of that mountain ridge 
yonder." 

We turned the bend and many another after it, how- 
ever, and still the river-banks stretched out untenanted 
before us. The fact was that it had been several years 
since Joe had navigated this stretch of the river, and it 
is not strange that he was in a sense lost. A gusty wind 
sprang up, roughening the river so much that we were 
compelled, because of our meagre free-board, to keep to 
the sheltered side. 

At last, a dozen miles beyond where Joe had first 
announced its impending appearance, the portage burst 
upon our sight. It was marked by a cultivated farm, 
rising gently up from the river, with fields of oats and 
timothy hay that had been cut and put into cocks, the 
most noticeable feature of the view being a white-painted 
frame house. A number of empty scows and dugout 
canoes were tied up to the bank, and drawn out upon it 
sat a short, dumpy vessel that by courtesy might be 
called a steamboat. 

The only person in sight on the landscape was a man 
hoeing in a potato-field at the top of the hill, and thither 
I walked while Joe was tying up the canoe. The indi- 
vidual in question proved to be only a hired man, as 
neither Seabach nor Hubble, the proprietors of the farm 
and of the wagons that make the portage, were at home, 
though both were expected back shortly. Their potato 
crop looked promising, as did also their oats. They even 



40 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

had a young orchard they had set out the year before. 
The apple-trees looked thrifty enough, but whether they 
will produce in a region where the temperature some- 
times falls as low as fifty degrees below zero Fahrenheit 
remains to be seen. 

Messrs. Seabach and Hubble, as I was already aware, 
were the pioneers in this particular section, having lo- 
cated here several years before. They still remain the 
only settlers. I had been told that they were grasping 
in disposition, inclined to charge all that the "traffic 
would bear," and this reputation was borne out in Hul- 
bert Footner's account of his trip through the country. 
Not only did they charge Footner an outrageous price 
for a few articles, but in hauling his collapsible canvas 
boat over the portage they punctured a hole in it and 
craftily plugged it up with a little axle-grease, so that 
he did not discover the damage until they had returned 
across the portage. 

After looking over the farm I went back to the land- 
ing and we cooked and ate lunch. Near by there was a 
long, crude dugout hauled up on the bank, and, as it was 
the first I had seen in this region close at hand, I exam- 
ined it with interest. On the bow I noticed a suspicious 
dark-red stain, and closer inspection revealed some 
coarse brown hairs. 

About three o'clock a sandy-haired little fellow, who 
proved to be Mr. Seabach, drove up in a farm wagon 
from down the river. He agreed to carry our stuff over 
that day, and he said that he intended also to haul over 
the dugout that I had inspected. The dugout belonged 



FROM PACIFIC TO ARCTIC WATERS 41 

to a certain Ivor Guest, of McLeod Lake. Guest had 
already crossed the portage on foot. 

A Httle later Mr. Hubble arrived from somewhere. 
He was a decided contrast to his partner, being a tall, 
stalwart man, with black hair and strikingly black eyes. 
He told us that he had once been a miner in the Klon- 
dike and had spent a winter trapping on the little-known 
Liard River in northern British Columbia. His chief 
impression of the Liard was the great number of porcu- 
pines in that region, he and his partner having killed 
over seventy for dog food. In view of recent experience 
this detail did not arouse in us any great desire to visit 
the Liard country. 

I jokingly referred to the bloody bow of the dugout 
and suggested that some one had been having fresh meat 
recently. 

"Oh, yes," he agreed carelessly. "Ivor Guest shot a 
deer coming down the Fraser from Aleza Lake yester- 
day. The carcass is hanging up in that tree over yon- 
der, to keep it out of reach of the flies." 

He pointed to an object swinging high up in a tree not 
far from his house. 

"Guest shot it with a .22 short," he added, and this 
we later learned from Guest was quite correct. As 
Guest was paddling down the Fraser late in the evening, 
the deer had stood watching him until he was only a 
short distance away; a tiny bullet from a tiny rifle had 
struck the foolish animal in the neck and ended its foolish 
career. 

When we informed Hubble that the game warden 



42 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

from Prince George, a disabled veteran of the Princess 
Pats, had told us that he expected to pay a visit to the 
portage shortly, Hubble seemed in nowise alarmed and 
merely remarked: 

"If he don't hurry up and get here pretty soon, he 
won't get any of the venison !" 

I asked Hubble if he remembered Hulbert Footner 
and his partner passing through in 191 2, and he said 
that he did and recalled an incident or two of their trip, 
but said nothing about the punctured boat. 

"They got a hole in their canoe on the way over the 
portage," I ventured. 

"Oh, yes," Hubble said airily, "but they had some 
stuff with which they easily fixed it up." 

Evidently he did not wish to recall the episode of 
the axle-grease ! Joe, to whom I had told the story, 
stole a glance at me and grinned, but we said no more. 

Judging from our experience with Messrs. Seabach 
and Hubble, I am inclined to think that perhaps they 
have been painted blacker than they are. They carried 
our stuff over for the reasonable sum of seven dollars 
and a half, and delivered it at the lake in good shape. 
Furthermore, the prices at their store seemed not too 
high, in view of its location, I suspect that, after all, 
they are just alert business men and, withal, pretty good 
fellows, in spite of their reputation among trappers and 
prospectors. 

At this place I made my first acquaintance with bull- 
dog flies. These insects closely resemble the ordinary 
horsefly of the Mississippi Valley, but are scarcely half 



FROM PACIFIC TO ARCTIC WATERS 43 

its size. They flew round Messrs. Seabach and Hubble's 
horses in swarms, and a little earlier in the year are a 
terror both to domestic animals and to such wild ones 
as moose and caribou. Unlike mosquitoes, they do not 
seem to care much for the blood of man, and yet now 
and then one will persist in buzzing about one's head 
in a most provoking way, and, unless watched closely, 
is likely to take a nip, and a big one, out of any exposed 
flesh. 

Seabach told us that, owing to the flies, he Would 
not start across the portage until dusk began to fall, 
so we helped stow our belongings in a wagon, and then, 
taking my camera and light rifle, Joe and I set out on 
the eight-mile tramp to Summit Lake. 

The trail we followed is one that for a generation or 
more has been used by Indians and Hudson's Bay men, 
and more recently by trappers and prospectors. Origi- 
nally it was a mere footpath, but a few years ago it was 
made wide enough to admit the passage of a wagon. 
In wet weather the trail is undoubtedly a quagmire, but 
it was now reasonably dry, and walking on it was a 
pleasure. The day, which had been fine and then 
stormy, was fair once more, and we made good time as 
we swung along the trail through the jack-pines (lodge- 
pole pines) and spruce. 

The trail is used more or less by Indians from the 
McLeod Lake country, coming and going to and from 
Seabach and Hubble's or Prince George to trade their 
fur. In several places we saw jack-pines that these 
Indians had peeled to get sap — mute evidence that the 



44 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

Siwash is hard put to it for food and often totters on 
the verge of starvation. 

We were now passing over the divide to a region 
draining into the Arctic, and this gave added zest to 
the walk. The portage-trail rises several hundred feet 
and does not descend so far on the north side, with the 
result that Summit Lake is about two hundred feet 
higher than is the Eraser at the other end of the portage. 
So far as I discovered from a cursory survey, there is 
no considerable change in vegetation, though the woods 
on the Arctic slope seem more open and the trees smaller. 
There is a decided difference in the finny denizens of 
the two river systems, and much the better fishing — 
with a rod — is to be found on the Peace River side. 
The greatest food fish of the Northwest — the salmon — 
does not, however, occur in the Arctic waters, and the 
Indians who live on these waters lead a much more 
precarious existence than do those who frequent good 
salmon streams on the Pacific side of the divide. Salmon, 
fresh or dried, is the staff of life to the Pacific coast 
Siwash, but the natives of the Arctic slope have no such 
recourse and must sometimes eat the sap of jack-pines. 

As we climbed a long hill we caught up with a wagon 
drawn by a span of mules, and behind the wagon trudged 
my Prince George acquaintance, Witt, and his Siwash 
dog and another man whom I did not know. The 
stranger, whose name proved to be Matteson, had formed 
a partnership with Witt, and they had hired the driver 
and his team to haul their outfit by the wagon-trail 
from Prince George to Summit Lake. They made a 




The start ox Summit Lake. 




0\ THE DIVIDE between PACIFIC AND ArCTIC WATERS. 
The trail had been u.sed for .several peneration.s by Indians and Hudson's Bay men. 



FROM PACIFIC TO ARCTIC WATERS 45 

mystery of whither they were bound, and, in accordance 
with the etiquette of the country, we did not ask them 
to disclose their destination. We inferred, however, 
that they had some rainbow dream of golden sands, with 
perhaps some trapping to fall back upon in winter, in 
case the dream should prove to be an empty one. Hope 
springs eternal in the breast of the prospector ! 

The wagon was too slow for us, so by and by we 
passed it and hurried on down the farther slope, and a 
little before sunset reached Summit Lake. Three or 
four log buildings stand at the end of the portage at the 
lake shore, and in one of them Seabach and Hubble keep 
a small stock of goods in charge of an old man whose 
name I do not recall. Seemingly the only other inhabi- 
tant of the region roundabout was a Swede named Gus 
Dalton, who has a pre-emption not far from the end of 
the portage and does a little trapping in winter. 

Dalton's talk ran almost immediately to the subject 
of grub and never wandered far from it. Thus was 
brought to my attention a phenomenon that I had no- 
ticed before in the North Country — that fully half the 
conversation is about things to eat. A large part of the 
stories told deal either with situations in which there 
was a shortage of grub or else with those in which there 
was a superabundance of superfine edibles. Later in 
the trip I was to realize more fully why the talk ran so 
much in one channel. 

As seen from the portage. Summit Lake is a clear and 
irregular body of water, surrounded by densely wooded 
shores, which rise in places to the dignity of considerable 



46 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

hills. The lake lies in latitude 54° 40' N., and its eleva- 
tion above sea-level is 2,400 feet. There are moose and 
bear among the hills, though not in large numbers, and 
caribou occasionally stray thither. The water is clear, 
the bottom of gravel, and this evening rainbow and 
Dolly Varden trout were making a great commotion 
feeding. 

At the lake we caught up with Ivor Guest, whose 
dugout was being brought over with our canoe, and from 
him we learned the full story of the deer that had suc- 
cumbed to a .22 short. Guest is a pink-cheeked, com- 
pactly built little fellow, with a tiny mustache. He is 
a native of Nova Scotia, a descendant of a family of 
Massachusetts Loyalists, and he lived for a few months 
in Chicago, where he worked as a photographer. For 
two or three years he was provincial fire-warden between 
Summit Lake and Fort McLeod, but he now has a trad- 
ing-post on Pack River, near the outlet of McLeod Lake, 
and is bucking Hudson's Bay for the Indian trade. He 
had been to Prince George on business, and like us had 
gone eastward on the Grand Trunk, but had stopped at 
Aleza Lake, had there bought a rough dugout, and had 
reached the Fraser by a slough that we had noticed a 
few miles below Hansard. I saw at a glance that he was 
a capital fellow, and, as he was thoroughly familiar with 
the route as far as McLeod, I was doubly glad when he 
proposed that we travel together. 

It was near ten o'clock when our outfit finally reached 
the lake, and as we had had no food with us it was pretty 
late before we had eaten supper and rolled into our 



FROM PACIFIC TO ARCTIC WATERS 47 

blankets. Happily the night was cold — almost freezing 
— and we were troubled little by mosquitoes. 

It had been a long but also a lucky day. Not only 
had we made the thirty-five miles down the Fraser, but 
we had also crossed the portage — either usually regarded 
a day's task. 

It was a keen satisfaction to me, as I lay looking out 
at the North Star — which, I noted, was much more 
directly overhead than at home — to know that we were 
at last really on our way and were camped on Arctic 
waters. Before us lay the great, silent, mysterious do- 
main of romance and fur. 



CHAPTER IV 
GOLDEN DAYS ON CROOKED RIVER 

Next morning, as Guest had only a light load, he 
kindly agreed to carry Peterson's case of jam as far as 
McLeod Lake, and thus we were relieved of sixty or 
seventy pounds of weight, with the result that our canoe 
rode a bit lighter. It had been our intention to start 
with Guest, but he decided to reduce the weight of his 
rough dugout and to give her better lines, and so set to 
work hewing her down with a hand-axe. As there .was 
danger that a wind might kick up enough of a sea on 
the lake to prevent us from proceeding, we said good- 
by to the assembled trappers and prospectors, shoved 
off from shore, and paddled on our way. 

"ril catch up with you on the Crooked," Guest 
called after us. 

A light head wind had already sprung up, roughening 

the surface of the lake, and we made haste to paddle 

across the main stretch of water in order to reach the 

shelter of the farther shore. To do this was a matter 

of less than an hour, as Summit Lake, though twelve or 

fifteen miles from shore to shore in places, is chiefly 

made up of a labyrinth of islands, arms, and channels. 

It is very easy for travellers unacquainted with the lake 

to become lost on it, and one party is said to have spent 

four days searching for the outlet. Those who know 

48 



GOLDEN DAYS ON CROOKED RIVER 49 

the lake steer toward a conical hill of rock that goes by 
the name of Teapot Mountain; the outlet lies beyond 
this at the end of a narrow arm. There are several of 
these conical hills farther on; one of the most notable 
bears the name of Coffee Pot Mountain. 

As we neared the outlet I tried trolling, for my fish- 
ing blood was surging pretty strong; but either the 
weather was unfavorable or the fish were not hungry, 
for I had no success. 

Just before we reached the outlet we landed in a 
thicket of young spruce and cut two poles. We peeled 
and shaved them off nicely and cut them to a length of 
about ten feet. Their acquisition was a sign that new 
conditions of travel were impending. 

Measured by the amount of water it carries, the out- 
let of Summit Lake is no more than a small creek. In 
places it contracts until it is only a few feet wide and 
very shallow and swift; in others it broadens out into 
long stretches of water so dead that even by dipping 
your hand down you cannot tell which way the current 
runs. In these quiet stretches the current is often nearly 
blocked with yellow water-lilies. The stream is rightly 
named the Crooked, for it winds here and there in a 
seemingly most purposeless and aimless manner, though 
the general direction is north. The low banks are cut 
by numerous arms and sloughs, and in many places are 
covered with a growth of willow so thick and matted 
together as to be practically impenetrable. 

The Crooked River is almost unique among British 
Columbia streams, in that, except for the conical "pots" 



so ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

already mentioned, no mountains can be seen from it. 
The Rockies lie too far to the eastward to be visible 
unless one could reach a considerable elevation; the 
mountains along the Eraser lie too far behind, and the 
western ranges are also too distant. 

We had not gone far before I surrendered entirely to 
the charm of this little stream. It was so small that one 
obtained a more intimate acquaintance with it and its 
banks than is possible on a real river. The water was 
clear as crystal, and fish were almost constantly in sight, 
sometimes darting hither and yon by ones and twos, 
sometimes swimming in great schools. They were 
mostly of the variety called "suckers," but now and 
then we caught fleeting glimpses of more shapely fish, 
whose sides were speckled with small red dots. The 
bottom in many places was of beautiful clean sand or 
gravel, with now and then boulders of considerable size. 
As we floated over the pellucid depths the canoe seemed 
balanced between earth and sky, and we experienced a 
sensation akin to that of flying. 

At intervals we came to miniature rapids, where the 
sparkling stream raced joyously over beds of parti-colored 
pebbles. The water in such places was rarely more than 
a foot or two deep; often it was only seven or eight 
inches, while the channel was frequently no more than 
four or five feet wide. The turns were numerous and 
abrupt, and it required the liveliest sort of work with 
our poles to negotiate these turns successfully. The 
water was so clear that as we floated down these swift 
reaches the shining pebbles seemed even closer than they 



GOLDEN DAYS ON CROOKED RIVER 51 

really were. We almost never touched them, but during 
much of the time we had only an inch or two to spare. 

"I'll bet there ain't another river in the world like 
it !*' declared Joe with enthusiasm. 

It was plain that originally the stream had been less 
navigable than now, for along many of the shallows there 
lay, on either side, a line of boulders that had evidently 
been rolled out of the way. The channel thus created 
is known to navigators as the "Wagon-Road.'* Just 
who did this work is uncertain, but one tradition says 
that it was done by a certain "Twelve-Foot" Davis, who 
was once a well-known character on these watercourses. 
Davis derived his sobriquet not from any excess of bodily 
stature, but from the fact that at some mining-camp in 
the early days he had become the possessor of a twelve- 
foot fraction between two mining claims. The fraction 
proved very rich in gold, and from it Davis obtained a 
stake that was helpful in later life. He was for years a 
"free trader" in the Peace River country, and at one 
time had a little fur post at the west end of the great 
Peace River Canyon. Subsequently he died at Slave 
Lake and was buried on a high hill overlooking Peace 
River Crossing. I saw the grave on my way out. The 
epitaph on the newly erected tombstone states that "he 
was pathfinder, pioneer, miner, and trader. He was 
every man's friend and never locked his cabin door." 

Occasionally we saw beaver cuttings, and two or 
three times noticed dams across brooks that emptied 
into the main stream. At one place some enterprising 
flat-tails had built a strong dam right across the Crooked 



52 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

itself, and travellers have been obliged repeatedly to cut 
a breach in order to get through. The beavers had not 
begun the work of reconstruction since the last traveller 
had passed, and we found just width and depth enough 
to go shooting through the gap. Before the white man 
came with his demand for fur this Crooked River region 
must undoubtedly have been one of the greatest beaver 
countries in the world. There are still many of them, 
and literally tens of thousands of musquash, dozens of 
which we saw swimming about in the shallow sloughs. 

Throughout the day we kept hoping that Guest 
would catch up with us, and in the water opposite our 
nooning-place we stuck a cleft stick bearing a note in- 
forming him that we would camp at the foot of a certain 
hill. We reached the hill about mid-afternoon, and once 
more tried fishing in a promising riffle that flowed in 
front of the camp. But the day, which had begun 
bright and clear, had turned cold and raw, and, in spite 
of our best efforts, we managed to catch only two small 
"Dolly Vardens," both of them with flies. As I had 
heard glowing stories of the glorious fishing along the 
Crooked, I was a bit disgusted and discouraged, and I 
said to Joe: 

"I'm afraid that Crooked River fishing is a good 
deal like many other things of which I have heard — bet- 
ter in prospect than in realization." 
"Just wait," he said confidently. 

Later I took my rifle and set out for the hill at whose 
foot we were camped. On the way I crossed a small 
meadow in which I saw some old moose tracks. The 



GOLDEN DAYS ON CROOKED RIVER 53 

hill was several hundred feet high, and from its top I 
had a good view of the course of Crooked River and its 
meanderings. The slopes of the hill were composed in 
large part of bare rock slides, but wherever there was 
any soil there were a few jack-pines and a profusion of 
huckleberries. A faint trail led along the hillside near 
the foot, and I noticed scores of jack-pines that had 
been peeled by the hungry Siwash. In view of the 
abundance of berries, I had hopes that I might see a 
bear, but after watching for a long time and suffering 
severely from a torment of black flies I returned to camp 
without having experienced an adventure of any sort. 

Our camping-place was one that had been used the 
previous year by some party of white men. A cross-pole 
resting in forked sticks stood ready to our hands, and 
there were also plenty of notched pothooks. Several 
times in the early stages of our trips we were able to 
make use of the paraphernalia of old camps and thus 
to lighten our labor. When we made a new camp we 
were usually content merely to drive some leaning sticks 
into the ground to support our pots. 

Our procedure in camping was usually about as fol- 
lows: As soon as the canoe touched the bank beneath 
the spot we had selected, I would spring out, pull the 
bow of the canoe up on the bank and tie the craft se- 
curely to some root or tree. I would then take out the 
axe and a couple of pots, fill the pots with water and 
mount the bank. Having selected a good spot for the 
purpose, I would proceed to build a fire, generally using 
the dry dead twigs that can usually be found within the 



54 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

"funnel" of a spruce. Birch bark is also good for this 
purpose. Having got a fire to going, I would rig up 
some leaning sticks and hang the pots over the fire, after 
which I would rustle more dry wood. Meanwhile Joe 
would be unpacking the grub supply and the necessary 
frying-pans, et cetera. The baking of a bannock was 
usually in order, and for this purpose the folding alumi- 
num reflector baker was *'jake." Joe was almost as 
good a cook as he was a canoeman, and, whatever the 
decision as to the menu, he invariably managed to pre- 
pare an appetizing "feed." Pitching my tent and cut- 
ting a supply of spruce boughs for beds fell usually to 
me. On this stage of the trip Joe pitched for his own 
use a little, low mosquito tent, of a type much used in 
that country. Supper over, I would turn scullion and 
clean up the dishes, pots, and pans, sometimes aided by 
Joe. Later, by the light of the fire, I would write down 
in short and cryptic form the events of the day, while 
Joe would smoke a few final pipes. 

At such times Joe enjoyed talking about himself and 
his experiences. He was fond of boasting of his exploits 
as a riverman and trapper, and he told many interesting 
stories of his experiences in these roles. When in the 
settlements he affected the part of a gay Lothario, and, 
being handsome and a showy dresser, claimed to have 
had great success in this character. His accounts of his 
exploits in this direction were often amusing, and I ven- 
ture to say that he could readily furnish a Boccaccio 
with ample material for a new Decameron. 

Soon after our start next morning we saw a covey of 



GOLDEN DAYS ON CROOKED RIVER 55 

willow (ruffed) grouse, but I failed to get a shot at any 
of them. We passed along a number of "wagon-roads," 
one of them unusually long and rapid. Down it we shot 
almost as swiftly as a log descending a flume. At the 
foot of one such riffle we found a likely-looking fishing 
spot, and, as the morning was bright and warm, the 
trout were rising by dozens. To set up my rod and 
make ready was the work of only a few moments. Using 
a spinner that was baited with the silvery throat of one 
of the fish caught the previous evening, I was soon con- 
vinced that the stories told of fishing on these waters 
were not mere figments of idle imaginations. The hun- 
gry denizens of that delightful pool stood not upon for- 
mality but dashed at my attractive tackle as if they 
had been fasting for a year. None of them was excep- 
tionally large, the biggest hardly three pounds, and the 
average perhaps a pound and a half, but within a few 
minutes I had ten or a dozen flopping over Joe's feet in 
the stern. Most of the fish were Dolly Vardens, a few 
were rainbows, and one or two were impudent and un- 
welcome "squawfish" that persisted in compelling me 
to pull them in. These last are a rather attractive-look- 
ing fish, in general appearance not unlike a perch, though 
not so handsomely marked. I have little doubt that 
they would be fairly toothsome, but we never tried them, 
hurling them contemptuously back and keeping only 
the rainbows and Dolly Vardens. 

The Dolly Varden trout, sometimes known as the 
bull-trout and by the Indians as sapi, is a first cousin to 
the lake-trout and the brook-trout, the scientific cogno- 



S6 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

men of the Dolly Varden being Salvelinus malmay that 
of the lake-trout Salvelinus namacushy and that of the 
brook-trout Salvelinus fontinalis. In appearance it is a 
shapely fish, with a large mouth well stocked with needle- 
sharp teeth and with sides plentifully sprinkled with 
orange-colored spots. It is as voracious as a pike or 
muskallonge, as some stories I shall have to tell of it 
will show. In some cases the smaller fish can be caught 
with flies; the two I caught the previous day had been 
thus inveigled; but, generally speaking, they take best 
a baited spinner, and for bait nothing seems to beat the 
white throat of another fish, though bulldog flies are also 
fascinating. The spinner with which we had greatest 
success was of medium size and bore half a dozen orange 
beads about the size of a pea. The Dolly is a hard, 
gamy fighter, generally breaks water on feeling the 
hook, and the flesh is excellent. 

The rainbow-trout is a bit of a mystery. According 
to some accounts, it is really a young steelhead, which is 
a sort of sea-trout. The steelhead in some lakes has 
become landlocked and is locally known as salmon. 
However, the rainbow is caught in sizes up to three or 
four pounds, and I personally caught several that were 
full of eggs, and Ivor Guest says that they spawn every 
month in the year — all of which runs counter to the 
theory that they are young steelheads. As the name 
indicates, the rainbow is marked along its sides with an 
iridescent riot of color. The beauty of this prismatic 
band baffles both description and the camera and must 
be seen to be appreciated. The rainbow is, to my mind. 



GOLDEN DAYS ON CROOKED RIVER 57 

better eating than is the Dolly Varden, and like that 
fish, is reasonably free from bones. It can be caught at 
times with a fly, but most of those I took were with a 
spoon, either in ripples or by trolling in lakes. The rain- 
bow is a fighter and does not leave the angler long in 
doubt as to whether he has something on his hook. 

While we were still engaged with the denizens of 
that first glorious pool the snub nose of a dugout shot 
round the bend above, and Ivor Guest came into view. 
He had been detained, he told us, at the portage for sev- 
eral hours by rough water on Summit Lake, but as soon 
as possible had hurried after us, and, finding our note, 
had worked hard and, by starting early that morning, 
had caught us up. We noticed that he had greatly im- 
proved the appearance of his canoe, but she was an ill- 
favored craft at best, for the log from which she had 
been fashioned was a poor one. 

"She's still a cranky beast," he said. "While I was 
hewing on the bow I cut a hole right through the shell 
and had to patch it up !" 

It was now apparent that I had caught the larger 
fish at that spot, and as I did not care to catch any more 
small ones, I appealed to Guest to say whether there 
were any good fishing spots a little farther on. 

"There are plenty of good holes," he answered read- 
ily. "It is only a little way to a much better one. I 
caught several big ones there last fall when I came up 
to catch fish to salt down for the winter." 

We paddled on, and a few more bends brought us 
to a place where the stream broadened a bit and, on one 



58 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

side, ran over a broad belt of white sand. In a hole per- 
haps five feet deep there lay an old water-soaked log. 

"Try casting just beyond that log," said Guest. 

He and Joe stopped the canoes in midstream, while 
I made ready. Suddenly there was a swirl of water 
from beside the log, and a big finny form shot swiftly 
away. I began casting in the direction his Majesty had 
fled, but for some minutes I labored in vain. Then the 
fish reappeared close to the log, only once more to take 
alarm and vanish. Once more I cast my spinner and 
let it lie on the white sand in plain sight. By and by 
along came the fish, saw the bait, smelled of it, calmly 
proceeded to walk away with it. I struck — in vain. 
Followed another flight, another return. The game was 
repeated, but this time there was no mistake, and I had 
a bunch of finny dynamite at the end of my line. Hither 
and yon he went, now springing out of the water, now 
sulking on the bottom, but all his efforts were vain, and 
finally he was drawn into the canoe. He was a five- 
pound fish, the biggest I had yet caught, but not the 
biggest I was to catch. 

At noon we built a fire on a bank deeply covered with 
sphagnum moss, and there cooked some of the fish. We 
were not parsimonious about the number we put into the 
frying-pan nor about the number we put into our stom- 
achs later. I cheerfully take oath that those fish tasted 
good as we sat on that sunny bank looking out over the 
river and talking of many things, but most of all about 
the country and its inhabitants, furred, feathered, finned, 
and human. Upon all these topics there was no one in 



GOLDEN DAYS ON CROOKED RIVER 59 

the whole region more competent to talk with authority 
than Guest. 

Among other things, he told us that he had fired at 
and hit a coyote with his little .22 on the way to Prince 
George, but the animal had managed to escape him in 
the bush. This turned the talk to the three-dollar 
bounty that is paid by the provincial government for 
the hide of this destructive little beast. Not long before 
only the scalp was required, but certain ingenious per- 
sons evolved a plan for getting more than one scalp off a 
single carcass, and the law had to be changed. Guest 
told of a greenhorn trapper who caught a "cross" fox, 
an animal whose pelt is worth several times three dollars, 
and cut off the scalp intending to claim the coyote 
bounty. 

"That's not a coyote; that's a cross fox," Guest told 
him when he saw the scalp. 

The trapper, much chagrined, hastily hunted up the 
remainder of the pelt, sewed the scalp back onto it, and 
managed to get a goodly sum for the skin, though con- 
siderably less than he would otherwise have obtained. 

Then and later Joe and Guest swapped many stories 
of their experiences as fire-wardens. Needless to say, I 
was a rapt listener, and occasionally interjected a ques- 
tion which, I hoped, would bring out some information 
that would illuminate a matter about which I was in 
doubt. I had thought of the comparative helplessness of 
a single man far out in the wilderness pitted against a 
raging hurricane of flame, and I asked somewhat naively: 

"What does a warden do when he finds a fire .?" 



6o ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

"Looks at it," grinned Joe. 

Then, being fearful that I would do the fire service 
an injustice, he was careful to explain that a warden can 
commandeer the services of any one he finds, and other- 
wise is not quite so helpless as he seems. Undoubtedly 
the wardens do much good, but the most of it consists in 
the prevention of fires rather than in putting out those 
that are actually under headway. A British Columbia 
law provides that any one building a camp-fire must put 
it out before leaving, and in the more travelled districts 
proclamations are posted setting forth the law and ex- 
plaining the importance of preserving the forests. 

Unfortunately, in British Columbia and elsewhere, 
there are individuals who are careless of the damage 
they may do. When they think there is no danger of 
being caught, such individuals will leave fires in the most 
dangerous places. They are the more apt to do this 
because camp-fires are often built on soil that is so full 
of decomposing vegetable matter that, when dry, it 
burns like peat. Of a morning the camper finds that 
his fire has burned a great hole in the ground during the 
night and has spread over a considerable area, particu- 
larly if there happen to be any old, half-rotten logs lying 
half-buried in the soil. To put out such a fire requires 
a lot of water and labor; the temptation to let it burn is 
very great, as I myself experienced. The Indians, too, 
are responsible for many bad fires, either through care- 
lessness or through purposely starting them. This is 
particularly true up Finlay River, where we on one or 
two occasions saw several fires burning at once. 



GOLDEN DAYS ON CROOKED RIVER 6i 

That afternoon a mink walked leisurely along a log 
at the edge of the river, within twenty feet of my canoe, 
and then disappeared in the brush. Of course we had 
no desire to kill it at that season of the year. 

We also saw a number of eagles, both bald and golden, 
and several ospreys or fish-hawks. The eagles live 
largely upon fish, and we saw almost none of them up 
the Finlay, which contains comparatively few fish. 
Eagles also create havoc among mountain-sheep lambs, 
and it is possible that the great number of eagles along 
the Parsnip and its tributaries has something to do with 
the fact that the mountains both to east and west of these 
waters contain almost no sheep. One big golden eagle 
circled round over us, uttering harsh cries. As the bird 
was not over two hundred feet up, I took my little rifle 
and fired two shots at him on the wing. The first missed, 
but the second cut several feathers out of him, and he 
darted down in such a way that for a moment we all 
three thought that he was done for. However, he was 
evidently more astonished than hurt — if he was really 
hurt at all — and he recovered himself and made off, fly- 
ing strong. 

That afternoon we came to some magnificent fishing- 
places, and I caught in a short time some big Dollies, to 
say nothing of several unwelcome squawfish. Some idea 
of the voracity of the Dollies may be inferred from the 
fact that one of those I caught had partly swallowed a 
six or eight inch sucker, head first; the head was partly 
digested, but the tail still stuck an inch or two out of 
the cannibal's mouth. I stopped when the fish were 



62 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

still biting freely, for I take no pleasure in catching any- 
thing merely to let it rot on the ground. On northern 
Georgian Bay I have seen strings of thirty or more big 
bass that had been caught and then thrown upon the 
bank, where they lay poisoning the air with their dis- 
agreeable effluvia. A fisherman guilty of such an act is 
nothing but a hog, and deserves the contempt of all real 
sportsmen. That night we made big inroads upon the 
fish caught that day and left the rest, perhaps nearly a 
dozen, nicely cleaned, in the bow of one of the canoes. 
While we slept a crafty mink — we found his tracks in 
the soft mud of the shore — stole them, every one, and 
carried them off to some cache of his own, to be eaten at 
leisure. Being thus rudely deprived of all the fish we 
had, I was afforded an excellent excuse for catching more 
next day. Thus is abnegation rewarded ! 

That same night the coyotes howled horribly and, 
hearing them, I had little doubt that many a tenderfoot 
would have shivered even in his tent and under his 
blankets. I say coyotes — plural — but knowing the abil- 
ity of one of these pesky beasts to create pandemonium, 
I would not take oath that there was really more than 
one. 

The traveller comes upon the tracks of these animals 
in many parts of British Columbia, but he rarely sees 
the animals themselves. I followed canis latrans along 
the Eraser River and down the Crooked, Pack, and Par- 
snip, up the Finlay and Quadacha, and down the Finlay 
again, but I never actually saw him until far down Peace 
River, and then from the deck of a gasolene-boat. They 



GOLDEN DAYS ON CROOKED RIVER 63 

are not wholly flesh-eaters. In the berry season their 
droppings show that they devour great quantities of 
blueberries and huckleberries. In the matter of living 
creatures they must catch mice, rabbits, and other small 
prey chiefly, for in all my wanderings I did not find a 
place where they had killed anything large enough to 
leave signs of a struggle. I several times saw where they 
had lain in wait for a beaver, but flat-tail appeared to 
have been too sharp for them. 

On the day after Guest joined us we passed Teapot 
Mountain, and then for about half a dozen miles our 
stream waltzed along very swiftly over a succession of 
shallow rapids, and to me this was one of the most 
attractive stretches of the river. The water was per- 
fectly clear, the gravel bottom of itself was a thing of 
beauty and a joy, and if there is any means of locomo- 
tion more agreeable than riding down one of those rapids 
over that glistening bottom, I have never experienced it. 

Here and everywhere else along the Crooked I was 
repeatedly struck with the great abundance of fish. 
Dollies and rainbows we generally saw in swift water, 
but every quiet pool was full of "suckers" or "carp,'* 
many of them big fish of several pounds' weight. They 
swam leisurely along in vast schools, and in places liter- 
ally hid the bottom. I doubt not that with a pound of 
dynamite one could have killed a wagon-load. 

Farther on the stream widens out and winds for miles 
through a vast willow flat. The current here was prac- 
tically dead, and in many places the water was fifteen 
or twenty feet deep. The stream then flows into Davie 



64 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

Lake, a body of water five or six miles long and in places 
two or three miles wide. 

I saw some big Dollies at the inlet of the lake, but 
failed to catch any of them, though I picked up a couple 
of rainbows in trolling to a small island on which we 
had lunch. As I had already caught a goodly number 
of Dollies earlier in the day, we again had an abundant 
supply, despite the mink's raid. There were a number 
of ospreys about this lake, and we witnessed several 
magnificent, splashing dives, from which the bird almost 
invariably rose with a fish. I have never ceased to won- 
der how these birds, flying high in the air, can pick out 
a fish and so time their stoop as to strike it with such 
certainty. 

Toward the northern end of Davie Lake there is a 
narrows, and on the slope of a hill on the right-hand side 
we saw a deserted cabin and the lonely grave of a young 
trapper named Allen Harvey, who in 1913 accidentally 
cut his knee with an axe and died soon after. 

Some miles below Davie Lake the river widens into 
a dead slough that is sometimes known as Long Lake. 
In this section of the river a particularly broad expanse 
is called Red Rock Lake, from an immense red boulder. 
There were a few geese near the entrance to Red Rock 
Lake, but they were too wild to permit us to get close 
enough for successful shooting. Farther on we disturbed 
a large flock of grebes, and we also saw a loon or two, 
and heard several more, while bullbats were almost con- 
tinually flying overhead, uttering their short, throaty 
roar. Shallow riffles were now a thing of the past on the 



GOLDEN DAYS ON CROOKED RIVER 65 

Crooked, and from Davie Lake onward the river would 
be navigable by boats of considerable size. 

The country from Davie Lake to McLeod Lake is 
generally more broken and is, in places, heavily timbered, 
for the most part with spruce, but with some small birch 
and poplar and a little fir, the last-mentioned tree, it is 
said, not being found north of Fort McLeod. The spruce 
is generally larger than that about Summit Lake. Esti- 
mates have it that the timber about Davie Lake would 
run thirty thousand feet to the acre. 

Realizing that this timber will become valuable when 
a railroad is built through the country, a great lumber 
company bought up a vast stretch of it. As I under- 
stand it, the tract was not bought as timber-land, but 
as low-grade land at a cheap price. Before making the 
purchase the lumber people sent in a party of "cruisers" 
who sought out one of the few grassy flats in the whole 
region and took pictures of themselves: first, standing 
in the grass; second, kneeling in the grass, and, third, 
sitting in the grass; the object being to have evidence 
that the tract was not valuable timber-land ! There 
must have been collusion somewhere, but, if so, the 
guilty officials had these prairie pictures to use in their 
defense. 

One heard a great many stories of this sort In British 
Columbia, but whether they were true or not I shall not 
undertake to say. If half of them had a basis in fact, 
undoubtedly there was as much graft in British Colum- 
bia as in any of our own States. For years it has rather 
amused me to see how Canadians have lifted pious hands 



66 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

to heaven and, with a hoher-than-thou attitude, have 
returned thanks that their pubUc affairs were not con- 
ducted on the same low plane as in the States. Person- 
ally I have long had a feeling that if they would only 
turn the search-light on some of their public transactions 
they would discover things that would jar their self- 
complacency. Recent unpleasant disclosures in Mani- 
toba and elsewhere tend to bear out this theory. 

When I reached British Columbia I found the prov- 
ince in the throes of a provincial election. Three big 
questions were being fought out: (i) Should the existing 
Conservative government be retained in power .? (2) 
Should the province concede *' votes for women".? (3) 
Should the province ''go dry" .? As British Columbia 
had long been overwhelmingly Conservative, the Con- 
servatives expressed great confidence in their ability to 
retain control, but one caught sight now and then of 
straws blowing about in the political wind that seemed 
to indicate that a change was impending. In the back- 
woods the suffrage issue did not seem to arouse much 
interest, but there was much talk about the prohibition 
issue. 

The few votes about Fort McLeod, Finlay Forks, 
Hudson's Hope, and farther down Peace River were con- 
sidered a prize worth striving for. These places are all 
included in the same electoral district as Prince George. 
The Conservative candidate had deemed it worth his 
while to visit in person the country we were passing 
through. His tour had been a de luxe affair. Among 
the luxuries carried along were a detachable motor, or 



GOLDEN DAYS ON CROOKED RIVER e'j 

"kicker," and a great abundance of liquid refreshments. 
My man Lavoie had been engaged at Finlay Forks for 
the rest of the trip, and had returned with the party by 
way of Peace River Crossing and Edmonton. It was 
evident from his account of the tour that he had been 
rather overwhelmed by the lavish magnificence with 
which the great man travelled; in fact, he was somewhat 
spoiled for an ordinary hard journey with a plain civilian. 

Toward noon of the fourth day from Summit Lake, 
well below the five-mile expanse of water called Kerry 
Lake, we came upon a Peterborough canoe tied to the 
right-hand bank and bearing on its bow the words, 
"B. C. Forest Service." A shout from us brought a be- 
whiskered man carrying a tin pail out of the woods, and 
he was introduced as Mr. Boursen, the forest ranger be- 
tween Summit Lake and Fort McLeod. He had landed 
to pick blueberries and to cook lunch, and we also 
stopped for lunch. Boursen is an old miner and pros- 
pector, having worked in many camps, including the 
famous Treadwell mine and around Barkerville. In the 
short hour we spent together he told us a number of 
good stories of his experiences, and we repaid him with 
the latest political and war news. He was the first per- 
son we had met since leaving Summit Lake. 

The big task for the remainder of that day was to 
cross McLeod Lake, the head of which we reached early 
that afternoon. As we swept out of the inlet I saw 
before me the largest expanse of water I had yet beheld. 
The lake is about fourteen miles long by one or two 
broad in the widest place, but only part of it is visible 



68 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

from either end, as there is a narrow constriction near 
the centre, and the channel there is partly filled by an 
island. The lake is surrounded by spruce-covered hills, 
rising shelf on shelf, and in every way it is a fine body 
of water. 

We had been uneasy lest when we should reach it we 
should find it too rough for our heavily loaded canoe, 
but we were lucky enough to get a fair wind that helped 
us greatly on what would otherwise have been a very 
long and tiresome pull, while it did not kick up the water 
enough to endanger our craft. Guest stopped near the 
entrance in order to rig up a sail, but we were afraid to 
make any such venture with our canoe and so kept on 
paddling. 

Just beyond the Narrows we met two trappers, a 
certain "Dutchy" and "Callis" Bell, on their way to 
Summit Lake and Prince George. Each had a crude 
boat and a dog, and each was as shaggy an individual 
as one is likely to meet, even in British Columbia. Both 
boats were heavy, the wind was dead against them, and 
the two men were glad of an opportunity to rest on their 
paddles and talk. They had been trolling across the 
lake, but they told us in unprintable language that the 
infernal fish were not biting and that they had caught 
only one. Their ill success was evidently due to poor 
tackle, for in fishing over merely a part of the same 
stretch I was lucky enough to haul in eight fine rainbows. 
We did not tarry long with our new acquaintances but 
paddled on down the lake, while they kept on their way 
up it. As the wind blew from them to us we could hear 



GOLDEN DAYS ON CROOKED RIVER 69 

them for a long time discussing with great freedom our 
appearance, outfit, and probable errand. 

It took Guest longer to rig his sail than he had ex- 
pected, and after it was done it did not work so well as 
he had hoped, partly because the wind grew lighter. 
We were almost at the farther end of our long pull before 
we saw his tiny bit of canvas pass through the Narrows. 
In order to give him a chance to catch up we landed on 
a shelving shore and had supper ready by the time he 
arrived. It was a pleasant spot, and in wandering along 
the boulder-covered beach I discovered some red berries 
on some trailing vines — evidently a variety of dewberry. 
Their flavor was beyond praise, but as they were far 
from numerous and were tiny as BB shot, I cannot say 
that I got my fill of them. 

After supper we paddled on to Fort McLeod, which 
lay just around a bend in the lake shore, and we camped 
that night on Guest's front "lawn," a mile or so down 
Pack River. 



CHAPTER V 
FROM FORT McLEOD TO FINLAY FORKS 

The Hudson's Bay trading-post, known as Fort 
McLeod, stands on the western shore of McLeod Lake, 
just above the spot where the lake empties into Pack 
River. Incredible as it may seem, this post is the oldest 
settlement west of the Rocky Mountains north of New 
Mexico and California. It was established by James 
McDougall, acting for the Northwest Trading Company, 
in 1805, and was taken over by the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany when the two companies grew tired of fighting each 
other and consolidated. At present it consists merely 
of two or three log buildings belonging to the Company 
and of the Indian village. The residence cabin is sur- 
rounded by a neat fence, and in front of the store there 
stands the usual flagpole. There is a garden in which 
some fine vegetables were growing. The man in charge 
of the post was an Englishman recently come with his 
family from Victoria. 

The Indians belong to the SIkanni tribe. In view of 

the fact that they have been under white influence for 

more than a century, one might reasonably suppose that 

they would have made considerable progress in the arts 

of civilization, but they still prefer to lead a primitive 

existence. Though they are fond of potatoes and other 

products of the soil — when they can beg them of white 

people — they have made little effort to raise these de- 

70 



FROM FORT McLEOD TO FINLAY FORKS 71 

slrable articles themselves. For the most part they are 
still meat-eaters and hunt and fish the year round. Big 
game is now scarce around the lake, but they still find 
an abundance on the headwaters of the Parsnip and in 
the Rockies to the eastward. 

They kill a considerable number of bears each year, 
some of them in midwinter when the animals are hiber- 
nating. Through long acquaintance with the country 
they know many holes and caves into which the animals 
are likely to retire for their winter sleep, and by visiting 
such places they find some bears. 

Disease and the fact that the squaws are adepts in 
controlling the birth-rate has gradually reduced the 
number of the McLeod Indians until there are less than 
a hundred of all ages and sexes. Most of them profess 
to be devout Christians, and the chief building of the 
village is a church, which is surmounted by a heavy bell 
that was brought in from the outside world a few years 
ago at the cost of much money and labor. The ringing 
tones of this much-talked-of importation did not unfor- 
tunately suffice to keep evil away, and a terrible scandal 
arose over the undue intimacy of the priest with a num- 
ber of the women. The church authorities outside un- 
frocked the priest, but the effects of his evil example 
abide and give ground for the sneers of those who remain 
pagans. 

The Indian men are said to keep a close watch over 
their Mooches^ or squaws, when white men are around, 
but among themselves the sexual relations of these 
McLeod Indians are very loose. Almost without excep- 



72 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

tion both bucks and squaws appear to be filthy both 
morally and physically. I did not hear a single good 
word said in their behalf, and a son of the factor, a lad 
of perhaps fourteen, confided to me that there was not 
"a decent one in the lot.'* Mackenzie relates that when 
he passed through this region, the ancestors of these In- 
dians *'most hospitably resigned their beds and the 
partners of them to the solicitations of my young men." 
As these natives had never before seen white men, their 
liberal view in this matter cannot be attributed to de- 
moralizing white influence. 

The McLeod Indians themselves seem to realize that 
they are contemptible, and they have a poor opinion of 
any one who descends to their level. Not long before a 
young trapper from North Carolina had formally mar- 
ried one of the young squaws, incurring thereby the 
scorn of both whites and reds. At the time we were 
there almost all the Indians had gone off into the moun- 
tains to shoot siffleurs, or whistlers, a sort of ground-hog 
whose greasy meat is much esteemed by the Indians and 
from whose hide they make warm robes. The white 
squaw-man accompanied them, whereupon a buck scorn- 
fully exclaimed: 

"First white man ground-hoggin'!" 

"When I began trading," Guest told us, "I took pity 
on some of the old people, they were so poor and wretched, 
and I would give them more goods for their furs than I 
would to the younger, husky ones. I soon found that I 
wasn't trading with anybody but old people, so I had to 
drop the practice and treat all alike." 



FROM FORT McLEOD TO FINLAY FORKS 73 

With the exception of Guest's place a little below it, 
Fort McLeod is the only settlement between Summit 
Lake and Finlay Forks, a distance of over two hundred 
miles. There are a few trappers' cabins at other points^ 
but none of these are inhabited all the year round. Talk 
of a railroad from Prince George through the Parsnip 
country and thence to Peace River beyond the mountains 
caused a number of men to locate pre-emptions about 
the foot of McLeod Lake, but most of them grew weary 
of waiting and either enlisted or set out for regions where 
real estate was in greater demand. At present Guest is 
the only competitor of Hudson's Bay Company in this 
region. He gave an amusing account of the pious hor- 
ror with which the H. B. C.'s men seemed to regard any 
effort to take trade away from that ancient and time- 
honored institution — "Here before Christ." 

Guest's place is on the east bank of Pack River, a 
mile or so below the lake. He is aided in his activities 
by a husky young Swede, and at the cabin that night 
there were also a forest ranger and a couple of trappers 
who were on their way with their grub supply to their 
winter camping-ground on the upper Parsnip. We were 
greeted with the usual questions about provincial politics 
and the war. The trappers possessed the distinction of 
owning the finest dugout we saw on the whole trip. We 
did not measure it, but it is certainly fully forty feet 
long, yet so well hewed out as to be both shapely and 
light. 

The dugout is the commonest craft on these waters, 
and they have some merits, being good, for example, 



74 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

for poling up-stream. It is customary to give them 
greater beam by spreading the sides and putting in 
thwarts. Ivor's Swede had recently grown dissatisfied 
with the width of one that lay at the landing, and 
proceeded to spread it so much that it split from end 
to end ! 

It was with real regret that we said good-by to 
Guest and set out down Pack River on the next stage 
of our journey. He had been a most pleasant com- 
panion, and his intimate knowledge of the country had 
rendered him especially valuable to us. We did not, 
however, travel on alone, as the fire ranger elected to 
make his return patrol to Finlay Forks with us. 

This gentleman, who bears the not uncommon name 
of Smith, is a native of Toledo, Ohio, and is some forty 
years old. Earlier in his career he had been a semi- 
professional baseball player, and as I have always been 
an enthusiast for the game, both as a player and "fan," 
we quickly found ourselves on common ground. As we 
floated down-stream, he regaled us with some of his 
experiences and thereby gave me an opportunity to 
boast of one of the few things in my life in which I can 
be said to be lucky: namely, that I witnessed the seventh 
game of a world series (Detroit vs. Pittsburgh in 1909), 
that I saw a no-hit-no-get-to-first-base game (Addie Joss 
of Cleveland against the Chicago White Sox, with Walsh 
pitching for Chicago), and that, mirabile dictu, I beheld 
the only triple play unassisted ever made in the big 
leagues. 

Smith was not the regular ranger, but he was work- 



FROM FORT McLEOD TO FINLAY FORKS 75 

ing at the Forks with a survey party and had been sent 
on this patrol as a substitute. Although he had been 
in the West for several years and had even made a trip 
to the Klondike, he had usually followed the beaten path 
and was still something of a tenderfoot, both as a woods- 
man and canoeman. Of the last fact we had rather 
amusing proof from his willingness to float down the 
river any old place, caring little for the channel and 
showing no ability to read water; also we had proof 
when we came to the Cross Rapids, a succession of shal- 
low riffles a few miles below our starting-place. In order 
to have enough water to float a canoe it was necessary 
right in the middle of the thing to make a traverse in 
shallow swift water full of shoals and rocks. Thanks to 
Joe's skilful management, we were able to pass through 
with ease, but Smith, in trying to make the traverse, 
ran aground, and was forced ingloriously to get out and 
wade his canoe round the rocks and shoals. 

We found this section of the Pack to be shallow and 
fairly swift, with many riffles and numerous log-jams 
and "sweepers," the last being trees that have been 
undermined and have fallen into the river with their 
roots remaining attached to the shore — a rather danger- 
ous combination for inexperienced men. Below Tootyah 
Lake, a body of water about two miles long by as many 
broad, the river is deeper and quieter. The timber 
along the banks consists largely of tall cottonwoods, out 
of which the dugout canoes are fashioned. After the 
monotony of dark-green spruce forests, a grove of these 
trees, with their tall stems often limbless for sixty feet, 



76 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

their grayish-white bark, and trembHng, Hght-green 
fohage, form a novel and welcome sight. 

At a deserted cabin on the Pack we stopped a few 
minutes and dug a supply of new potatoes, rather small 
but excellent eating, and we also pulled some turnips 
for "greens." About noon we passed out of the Pack 
into the Parsnip, a much larger, raw-looking stream, 
whose greenish water, coming from the snow and ice in 
the main chain of the Rockies, contrasted with the 
clearer, somewhat brownish swamp water of the Pack. 
The two rivers mingle quietly between banks of gravel, 
perhaps a dozen feet high, back of which lie flats over- 
grown in places with large cottonwood-trees. It is here- 
abouts that the McLeod Indians make most of their 
canoes. Below the mouth of the Pack, on the opposite 
side, there rises a cut bank, of which more hereafter. 

We were once more in sight of mountains. Looking 
eastward we caught glimpses of the western range of the 
Rockies, while to westward lay another range, farther 
distant but containing some peaks tall enough to bear 
perpetual snow. After several days of travel through a 
comparatively flat country it gave one a feeling of ex- 
hilaration to gaze at these bold ranges rising up into the 
blue, and to speculate as to what game could be found 
on their upper slopes. 

The tactics of a flock of ducks that afternoon fur- 
nished us much amusement. There were fifteen or 
twenty of them, and we never got near enough to them 
to determine their species. Only one — probably the 
mother — appeared able to fly, but what the rest lacked 



FROM FORT McLEOD TO FINLAY FORKS -j-j 

in wing feathers they made up by their fleetness in 
swimming. Whenever we drew close enough for them 
to think themselves in danger, they set both feet and 
wings to work and went splashing along like a hydro- 
plane that is trying to rise in the air. We drove them 
ahead of us thus for fully a dozen miles, but we never 
succeeded in catching them up or wearing them out. 
When we camped we saw them take advantage of the 
twilight to sneak back past us on the other side of the 
river. 

We lunched next day just above the mouth of Nation 
River. The name of this river and the sight of a high 
cut bank directly opposite its mouth recalled a grim 
experience that a score of years before befell Warburton 
Pike. Pike, as those acquainted with the literature of 
sport and travel in the far Northwest are aware, made a 
long and hazardous trip to the Barren Grounds, the land 
of the caribou and musk-ox, and on his way back to 
civilization ascended Peace River, intending to go out 
by way of Fort McLeod and the Fraser River. He 
reached Hudson's Hope in November and made the 
carry round the big canyon to a cabin that stood at the 
western end. It had been his intention to wait here for 
the freeze-up and then to make his journey over the 
ice, but the fall was late, the weather fine, and on the 
26th of November he took a canoe and endeavored to 
proceed by water. With him went a man named Murdo, 
who had been with him for some time, a worthless white 
man named John, who had attached himself to the party 
in order to get out of the country, a half-breed named 



78 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

Charlie from Quesnel, and an Indian named Pat from 
Eraser Lake. Pat and Charlie had recently come down 
the river from the McLeod country, and John also had 
been over the route a few years before, but to Pike and 
Murdo the region was entirely new. 

Paddling, poling, and tracking, they made fair prog- 
ress for a time, but a severe cold wave descended and 
soon filled the river with floating ice. Braving great 
danger, they managed in a week's time to pole and track 
their boat to the Finlay Rapids, a little below the Forks, 
but they found the river at the Forks entirely blocked, 
so they had to abandon their boat and proceed up the 
Parsnip on foot. In order to travel as light as possible 
they cached their guns, and other stuff, including about 
thirty pounds of flour, intending to send back a dog team 
from McLeod after them. 

For days they floundered through deep snow and, 
finally, hungry and well-nigh exhausted, they reached a 
river that flowed into the Parsnip from the west. There 
was a high cut bank opposite the mouth, and both 
Charlie and Pat declared the stream was Pack River. 
They followed it for many miles and finally came to a 
swift rapid that convinced them it could not be Pack 
River, and that they were lost. Afraid to try longer 
to reach the fort, they turned back toward Hudson's 
Hope. For ten days they were without food, except a 
few scraps and some bits of moose hide, but finally, in a 
starving condition, they reached the Forks and found 
the flour safe. However, it was a bagatelle among five 



FROM FORT McLEOD TO FINLAY FORKS 79 

hungry men, who still had ninety miles of travel through 
a mountain wilderness before them. They were fre- 
quently delayed by blizzards, and the only game they 
were able to kill during the whole of their starving time 
was one grouse and a mouse, both of which they boiled 
with their flour. Charlie and Pat surreptitiously ate 
some of the flour that Pike was holding in reserve, and 
Pike came near shooting them for doing so. So great 
was their suffering that Pike later stated that he mar- 
velled that the party had not resorted to cannibalism. 
A month after leaving the canyon, half-blind, frost- 
bitten, reduced almost to skeletons, they at last dragged 
themselves back to the western end of the canyon, and 
there found food. 

Such is the story as Pike tells it. Charlie, the half- 
breed, had a different version. To Fox, the factor at 
Fort Grahame, he declared that Pike was to blame for 
the misfortune, that nothing the men could do could 
please him, that they decided not to attempt to guide 
him, with the result that they went up Nation River. 
Personally I do not believe this story; I have no doubt 
it was concocted in an effort to cover up the bad beha- 
vior of Charlie and Pat. Surely, if the precious pair 
really knew the route to McLeod, they would not have 
gone up Nation River and nearly starved to death merely 
to spite their employer. Charlie had begun his trip 
that season by stealing fifty dollars from his mother in 
Quesnelle; in later years he bore a most unsavory repu- 
tation. He killed his squaw and for a long time remained 



8o ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

in hiding for fear of punishment. He was just the worth- 
less sort of fellow to steal flour from starving comrades 
and lie about the trip afterward. 

It is easy to see how Pike's party made their mistake. 
Owing to the bad going they had travelled days enough 
to have reached the Pack, and when they found the 
mouth of a river flowing in from the west, with a cut 
bank opposite, Pat and Charlie jumped to the conclu- 
sion that it was the Pack. In reality, as I mentioned 
above, the cut bank near the mouth of the Pack is not 
exactly opposite but some distance below. 

Along this stretch of Parsnip River there are many 
steep gravel banks, some of them hundreds of feet high. 
The water and wind have carved many of them into fan- 
tastic forms. Not infrequently one sees portrayed on 
them the towers and battlements of mediaeval fortresses, 
and the likeness is startlingly exact. When we passed 
one of the tallest, a picture of which is shown, a high 
wind was blowing, and the sand and gravel were being 
constantly loosened, causing great clouds of dust to rise 
and dislodging stones and even big boulders that came 
bounding down the almost perpendicular slope in veri- 
table showers. So powerful is the action of the wind on 
such cliffs that it even undermines big forest trees grow- 
ing on the top. 

In places, instead of coarse gravel, the cliffs were 
composed of stratified sand or silt, and such places were 
often honeycombed with thousands of holes dug by bank 
swallows {Riparia riparia, Linn.). One observes the 
same phenomenon along the Eraser and up the Finlay; 




^, 



i> 'i' ¥iliifn<iiii 




Cut bank on Parsnip River. 



FROM FORT McLEOD TO FINLAY FORKS 8i 

in the course of the trip we saw tens of thousands of 
such holes. The nesting-season was, however, past. 
Where high banks are not available the birds not infre- 
quently tunnel into low ones, and the kingfishers, of 
which there are many along these streams, do likewise. 
It is not uncommon to see the large tunnel dug by a 
pair of kingfishers surrounded by smaller tunnels made 
by swallows. 

The day we passed the largest of these cut banks on 
the Parsnip, Smith pointed out a spot at which he had 
camped on the way up, and he related a harrowing ex- 
perience that befell him there. He had crept into his 
little mosquito-proof tent for the night, had smoked a 
final pipe, and was dozing off when out in the thick bush 
under the dark trees some animal began to make a noise. 

"It went stamp! stamp!" said Smith, and he illus- 
trated by striking his thigh. "The sound was not very 
loud, but I sat up in a hurry and looked out. The fire 
had died down, and I could see nothing, but again the 
thing went stamp ! stamp ! I didn't know but that it 
was a bear or something, so I grabbed up my rifle and 
sent two shots in the direction of the sound. All was 
still for a bit, and I had about decided that the thing 
had gone when again there came stamp ! stamp ! That 
was too much for my nerves. I hustled out, threw some 
wood on the fire, took my tent and blankets, and spent 
the rest of the night down on the beach close to the 
canoe." 

We noticed a spruce that leaned far out over the river 
at the place where the adventure occurred, and we in^ 



82 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

sisted that Smidty had spent the rest of the night roost- 
ing in its topmost branches, but to our guying he merely 
repHed by smihng and looking wise. The beast that 
scared him may have been a pack-rat, possibly a lynx, 
but more probably a rabbit. If the disturber was a 
lynx, Smith was in no more danger than if it had been 
a rabbit or a pack-rat, for a lynx is too small to be really 
dangerous to man, and, besides, though he can manage 
to put a most fiendish scowl upon his face, he can hardly 
be made to fight even when caught in a trap. 

Many a tenderfoot has his nerves severely tried when 
he goes into these Canadian wilds. In the sand or 
mud of nearly every beach he sees bear tracks, usually 
those of black bears, but now and then the mighty im- 
print — and the great claw marks show plainly — of a 
grizzly. There are big wolf tracks, also, to say nothing 
of those of various other animals. The tenderfoot, of 
course, remembers the stories of his youth, which gen- 
erally represent bears and wolves as continually on the 
prowl, seeking human beings to devour. Little wonder, 
then, that as the camp-fire dies down, as he listens to 
the distant hoot of the great owls or the indescribable 
howl of the coyotes, he shivers in his blanket and pulls 
it over his head ! 

Really the danger from wild animals to which the 
camper is exposed is infinitesimal. In the depth of win- 
ter in a wolf country a hungry pack might pounce upon 
a sleeping man who had permitted his fire to die down, 
but this is almost the only conceivable danger. This 
region is too far north for cougars or mountain-lions — 




Reproduced from a photograph by Ivor Guest. 

Moose run down by Ivor Guest on snow-shoes. 



FROM FORT McLEOD TO FINLAY FORKS 83 

they range only as far as the upper Fraser — and even if 
it were not, these animals need be little dreaded, for they 
are almost as cowardly as the lynx. In all the history 
of man's dealing with American bears I do not believe 
there is a single authentic instance of a bear having 
pounced on a sleeping man. Bears now and then come 
into camp in search of something to eat, or they may 
blunder in by mistake, but they do not come in to begin 
hostilities with the occupants. 

Down somewhere in the Fraser country Joe Lavoie 
once had an adventure that startled him a bit, but left 
him laughing after it was over. 

"I camped one night," he says, "in thick woods 
right on a game trail. It was as black as ink under the 
trees, and I had about gone to sleep when I heard some- 
thing come walking heavily up the trail. It was puffing 
and wheezing away, and I knew it must be an old bear. 
As the wind blew from him to me he did not smell the 
camp but kept right on, and he was nearly on top of me 
when I let drive toward the sound with my .45 Colt six- 
shooter. By the flash I saw a great big, fat, black bear. 
I don't think I hit him, but he went right over back- 
ward, let out a bawl that could have been heard to the 
Arctic Ocean, and dashed back down that trail, hitting 
about every tree and windfall in a mile. I never saw 
nor heard him again, but I bet he kept going till he was 
all give out. Of course, he hadn't meant any harm. 
He just had business that took him along that trail, and, 
not smelling me, he walked right into camp." 

Below the Nation we stopped for a few minutes at 



84 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

the cabin of a Bavarian trapper named Haas, who in 
peace times had served in the German army. He was 
only one of several Germans I met in the backwoods, 
and they were going about their business as if war had 
never been dreamed of, while the Canadians were just 
as friendly to them as to anybody. Of course, Canada 
has detention-camps into which she puts obstreperous 
alien enemies, but she permits those who mind their 
business to go free. One of these Germans told me 
that when he went into town that spring to get a new 
trapper's license, the government official said to him: 

*'Now, of course, the law says that you must not, 
being a German, carry a gun. But," and he winked 
significantly, ^^we shall not he watching you when you are 
out in the hush !'* 

We camped that night near the cabin of an American 
trapper named Scott, who was long a cowman in Routt 
County, Colorado. He had an unusually roomy cache 
built up on high posts and so arranged as to be out of 
the reach not only of bears and wolverenes but also of 
rats and mice. He expressed the conviction that he 
would pass a comfortable winter, if he could only man- 
age to kill a "ripe bear." By this he meant a bear that 
was fat enough to make lots of grease for use as lard. 

Scott told us numerous stories of his experiences both 
on the Parsnip and in Colorado. He seemed to take 
special pleasure in one at the expense of a famous Ameri- 
can naturalist whose name used to be written with a 
hyphen and the two parts of which have been reversed, 
the alleged episode having occurred in the Colorado 



FROM FORT McLEOD TO FINLAY FORKS 85 

Rockies. He also had a better story about two Calgary 
tenderfeet who tried to build a fire with green willows ! 

"What do you think of this region for a hunting 
country?" I asked him. 

"Well," said he reflectively, "in the old days in 
Routt County, when the deer and antelope and elk were 
bunching up, one could see more meat in a week than 
he would up here in a lifetime. It's not that there isn't 
plenty of game here. There are bear and moose maybe 
right now within a quarter of a mile of us. If we could 
see all the game there is it would seem like a good deal. 
But this thick forest is hard to hunt in. Down in Colo- 
rado the country was more open, and you could see the 
game." 

A swift mountain-stream comes tumbling into the 
Parsnip just above Scott's cabin, and the place bears a 
high reputation as a fishing spot, both for sapi and also 
for what are known as "Arctic trout," but my luck was 
limited to a single sapi, which, however, was big enough 
to make a meal for the three of us next morning. 

The morning we left Scott's, Joe saw far ahead some 
animal swimming toward an island in the middle of the 
river. It did not ..ride high enough in the water for a 
bear, and looking through my glasses I made out that 
it was a lynx. By rapid paddling we managed to get 
within less than two hundred yards when the animal 
landed on the island. He seemed to be tired by his 
effort and shambled slowly and leisurely along with the 
awkward, angular gait that is typical of the lynx, but, 
suddenly perceiving us, he broke into a gallop. Picking 



86 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

up my small rifle I took a snapshot at him as he ran, 
but managed only to knock up some gravel at his feet, 
thereby increasing his speed. 

On the final day on the Parsnip we passed a big 
gravel-bar, the head of which had recently been worked 
by miners using a "grizzly." The river was now more 
tortuous, and in places rugged hills rise from the water's 
edge, but there are also extensive level flats and rolling 
plains. The farther one goes the higher loom the moun- 
tains both to west and east, and finally one catches 
sight of the peak of Mount Selwyn, standing sentinel-like 
over the gateway of the Peace, and of many unnamed 
mountains — all towering high enough into the blue to 
give the beholder that uplift of spirit which I, at least, 
always feel when I come into the presence of giant peaks. 

Very little is known of the immense mountain-mass 
lying between Pine Pass and Peace River, and there are 
several interesting biological questions that a thorough 
investigation of this region might throw light upon. 
How far north, for example, does the real bighorn {Ovis 
canadensis) extend his range in this region ? Are there 
caribou to be found there, and, if so, of what species are 
they? Mountain-goats have been seen on Mount Sel- 
wyn and also on mountains on the north side of Peace 
River, but there seems to be no authentic record of 
mountain-sheep having been killed there. In 191 2 Mr. 
Frederick K. Vreeland's party sought sheep in the Selwyn 
region without success, but they did not extend their 
investigations very far south. Later they killed Stone's 
sheep {Ovis stonei) in the region of Laurier Pass, and, 



FROM FORT McLEOD TO FINLAY FORKS 87 

according to Vreeland, these sheep had some of the char- 
acteristics of the common bighorn. In 1916 WiUiam 
Rindsfoos killed specimens of the bighorn on Wapiti 
River, north of Jarvis Pass, which is a good distance 
south of Pine Pass. Between Laurier Pass and the spot 
where Rindsfoos obtained his sheep lies a wide belt of 
country in which sheep have not yet been found and 
reported to the scientific world. Biologists are anxious 
to discover whether this gap can be bridged, to learn 
whether or not the black sheep {Ovis stonei) and the big- 
horn remain separate and distinct, or whether they in- 
tergrade, as in the case of the northern species of sheep. 
The problem is interesting not only in itself but for its 
bearing on the greater problem of the evolution of 
species. 

If there had been time I should very much have liked 
to make a side trip into the Rockies at this point, but 
such a trip would have been a long and serious under- 
taking, for by every account the region is exceedingly 
rough and the going impeded by much down timber. 
H. Somers-Somerset's expedition which went through 
the Pine Pass country in 1893 from Dunvegan were 
reduced to killing some of their pack-horses for food, 
and reached Fort McLeod in a state of semistarvation. 
The region east of the upper Finlay had been selected 
as the scene of our operations, and the shortness of the 
season demanded that we hasten thither as fast as cur- 
rent and paddles would take us. 

On a memorable afternoon, when a high wind was 
kicking up the river so heavily that we were forced to 



88 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

keep in sheltered water near shore, we floated down the 
final stretch of the Parsnip beneath the towering cliffs 
of Mount Wolseley, fought the broad, racing current of 
a new river that came dashing down from the north, 
and tied up under the bank at Peterson's at Finlay Forks. 

Our approach had been noted through a spy-glass, 
and a little group had gathered on the bank to welcome 
us and, I doubt not, to learn our mission, for these dwell- 
ers in the wilderness have a large bump of curiosity. 
Most of them were old friends of Joe's, and I was soon 
introduced to Mr. Peterson, a grizzled old Dane of whom 
more hereafter; to Mr. Staggy, a short, fat German, 
wearing a broad hat and a broader smile; to "Shorty" 
Webber, a still shorter and stockier German; and to a 
couple of prospectors who had been operating a "grizzly" 
on some of the Parsnip bars and had washed out a big 
bag of "dust." 

As the "Forks" may In course of time make some 
noise in the world, I shall describe a bit in detail how it 
appeared that afternoon. Flowing up from the south, 
the Parsnip meets here the mightier Finlay, pouring 
down from the north, and their mingled waters become 
known henceforth as Peace River. To the west of the 
Forks and for a short distance on the east of the Finlay 
there lies a level plain, heavily overgrown with timber 
and consisting of rich alluvium capable of growing splen- 
did crops, as the luxuriant cabbage and potatoes in 
Peterson's neat garden bore witness. Around this plain, 
rising like the seats of an amphitheatre, tower the moun- 
tains. Those to the west and southwest, the Ominecas, 




A trapper's MAIN' CAMP. 




Pktkrsox's place at Fixlay Forks. 



FROM FORT McLEOD TO FINLAY FORKS 89 

are distant, but those on the north, east, and southeast 
stand right over the Forks. A mile down the Peace are 
Finlay Rapids, and their roar can be heard with great 
distinctness at the Forks. 

It is the fond hope of the inhabitants that theirs will 
one day be a great city, and they keep their eyes strained 
ever southward looking for the coming of a railroad. 
The place undoubtedly enjoys some important strategic 
advantages, and I could give several good reasons why 
the promoters who are behind the projected extension 
of the Pacific Great Eastern to the plains country of 
Peace River would do far better to come by way of the 
Forks than to take the somewhat shorter route by way 
of Pine Pass. Ultimately there will probably be a rail- 
way that will follow the Peace to Hudson's Hope, and 
another that will run up the Finlay valley to Alaska, 
but how soon these roads will become realities is prob- 
lematical. 

Already there exists strong rivalry as to which side 
of the river the town site shall be. If a railroad does 
come through there will undoubtedly be town sites on 
both sides ! But the palatial residences of the nabobs 
who make millions out of real estate, timber, and mines, 
will be located on the heights to eastward. At present 
the place has three centres. First, there is the govern- 
ment house, a new cabin standing on an island in the 
Parsnip a little above the mouth. Second, Mr. Staggy's 
store on the east side of the junction. Third, Mr. Peter- 
son's new cabin and store on the timbered flat opposite. 
I ought to say that neither Mr. Peterson nor Mr. Staggy 



90 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

has as yet advertised for clerks to help them with press 
of customers. In fact, it would not take a very strong 
team to pull the stocks of both. But it should be added 
that most great mercantile houses have their small be- 
ginnings ! 

As for the population of the region, being averse to 
disclosing the nakedness of friends, I shall merely say in 
passing that there must have been almost a score of 
men roundabout when I was there — Including a party 
of surveyors, whose strength I decline to state. The 
winter before the Forks boasted of the society of two 
ladies, but it boasts no more. If all the men who have 
taken pre-emptions should return, the population would 
be increased a dozen or so. But some grew tired of 
waiting for the railroad, while others became Inflamed 
with a desire to help reduce the surplus population of 
Germany. 

It must not be understood that I ascertained all these 
facts standing upon the bank beneath which we had 
tied our canoe. The truth Is that after a survey of 
what lay about me — in particular of the Finlay of my 
dreams — I entered Peterson's "store" and found Joe 
busily examining his beloved graphophone. The exami- 
nation proved satisfactory, and soon we had the pleasure 
of listening to the strains of "Molly Maclntyre" and 
many another "classic" ! 



CHAPTER VI 
BUCKING THE FINLAY 

With our arrival at Finlay Forks our "joy ride" was 
over; our real work had begun. Henceforth every mile 
of advance could be won only at the cost of exhausting 
physical effort; no more lazy drifting down with the cur- 
rent, dipping our paddles only when we felt like making 
the effort. As I stood on the bank in front of Peterson's 
the afternoon of our arrival at the Forks and noted how 
the current came pouring fiercely down from the north, 
I realized that we must nerve ourselves for conflict; not 
merely for a skirmish or even for a pitched battle, but 
for a. campaign. 

The Finlay River, which should really be called the 
Peace, is a stream which at its mouth was, even at that 
low stage of water, over three hundred yards wide and 
very swift and deep. To make a comparison which will 
be understandable to Americans, the Finlay is a river 
larger than the Wabash and drains a rugged mountain 
area probably larger than Indiana. 

At Peterson's we left a considerable quantity of pro- 
visions and a number of other articles which we had 
decided we could dispense with. We did this to lighten 
the canoe, but as Joe added his rifle, a great deal more 

bedding, and a big tent that must have weighed fully 

91 



92 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

forty pounds, the canoe lay about as deep in the water 
when we began to buck the Finlay current as when we 
reached the Forks. The tent added to our comfort at 
various times during the trip, but we could readily have 
done without it. I consented to take it along because 
of my growing knowledge of Joe's weakness for sybaritic 
luxuries. 

Every old traveller in the North has experienced 
how difficult it is to get an outfit started away from a 
settled place at an early hour, and such travellers will 
readily understand why it was after nine o'clock, before 
we at last said good-by to Peterson, ** Shorty" Webber, 
and others who had gathered to see us off, and pushed 
the canoe out into the river. The fact is that we had 
remained up late the night before and felt disinclined 
to arise early, both because of this fact and because of 
a hard frost. The temperature, in fact, fell low enough 
to freeze a thin covering of ice on water-pails and to 
"cook" the tops of the potatoes. This was the i6th of 
August, considerably earlier, I was told, than frost usu- 
ally visits the Forks. The untimely visitation stopped 
the growth of potatoes for that year, but those that had 
been planted early were already pretty well advanced. 

My weight brought the bow of the canoe so- low in 
the water that, as I had had little experience in poling, 
Joe deemed it better for me to walk on shore a good 
part of the time, while he shoved the canoe up. On the 
quieter stretches we paddled, and I always helped to 
make the frequent crossings which were rendered neces- 
sary by log-jams and lack of pole bottom along steep 



BUCKING THE FINLAY 93 

banks, whereas shallow water could always be found on 
the opposite, or gravel-beach, side. 

Let no party set out with the mad thought that they 
can paddle all the way up the Finlay. They might as 
well attempt to fly to the moon. They would make a 
little progress on either trip, but in neither would they 
ever arrive at their destination. 

For a few miles up the Finlay the choicest bits of 
land have been pre-empted, and a few cabins have been 
erected. Most of the pre-emptors, however, had either 
abandoned their claims in disgust or had gone to the 
war. I reproduce on p. 106 the picture of a cabin be- 
longing to one such volunteer. The projecting logs in 
front furnish evidence that he intended to add a front 
porch to his habitation, but answered the summons of 
the fiery cross before he got it done. It was certainly 
a long way to go to fight. To reach Prince George, the 
nearest recruiting-station, is a matter of about two weeks 
of hard and exhausting effort. And even Prince George 
is a bit distant from the fighting front. One of the con- 
tingents, on leaving that place, displayed a banner bear- 
ing the inscription, ''Seven thousand miles to Berlin!'* 
Truly a wonderful thing is the British Empire; it has its 
concrete realities, some of them not altogether admirable, 
and it also has the spirit that gives life. As I passed 
these deserted cabins and gazed through the open door- 
ways at the litter within I felt like reverently lifting my 
hat in honor of the gallant fellows who had answered the 
distant call. A finer thing than this rallying from the 
ends of the earth the world has never seen. 



94 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

Four miles up the river we stopped at the neat cabin 
of a pre-emptioner named Gibson, and, though it was 
only eleven o'clock, he insisted on digging some potatoes 
and cooking a meal before he would let us proceed. 
Gibson is a man of middle age, a native of Ontario, but 
lone a resident of British Columbia, and he tells of hav- 
ing years ago chopped timber off lots in Vancouver that 
he could have bought then for seventy-five dollars apiece, 
and that are worth a hundred thousand apiece now. 

A little above Gibson's, as I was making my way 
through some burnt timber, a red-tailed hawk alighted 
on a black stub, a hundred and nine paces away, and I 
cut him down with a bullet from the little .32. Much 
of the timber along the river had been burned, and in 
places the open patches were covered with a thick growth 
of fireweed, whose gay, pinkish flowers gave a touch of 
brilliant beauty. This plant bears a small pod w^hich 
bursts open and releases a sort of cotton that helps to 
distribute the seed. Some patches were badly overrun 
by a big worm, whose excretions unpleasantly discolored 
one's trousers when he brushed against the pests. In 
passing through some of the burns I had to watch my 
steps, for the ground was full of deep pitfalls left by 
burnt roots; in spite of my care, I several times plunged 
down into the holes. 

That afternoon we passed Pete Toy's Bar, where 
3^ears before a giant Comishman and associates are said 
to have washed out seventy thousand dollars' worth of 
gold-dust. Toy was long a celebrated character in this 
region, and tradition says that he had two klooches to do 



BUCKING THE FIXLAY 95 

his packing for him. He was finally drowned 'in the 
Black Canyon of the Omineca, and, of course, there is a 
story that he left a great hoard of buried "dust." His 
bar still exercises a fascination for prospectors, and it 
would seem that some time or other every one who visits 
the region takes a whirl at it. That spring some hopeful 
soul had thought well enough of it to square the stump 
of a small poplar and set down in pencil that he meant 
to file a claim there. Evidently he had a sense of humor, 
for he called the claim the " Perhaps Placer." 

The gold in Pete Toy's Bar probably came originally 
from the Omineca River, and years ago there were some 
rich camps up this stream, such as "Old Hog'em" and 
"New Hog'em." But the cost of bringing in supplies 
was almost prohibitive, and even now it costs ten cents 
a pound to get freight from Prince George to Fort 
Grahame. When a railroad reaches the country, it may 
prove profitable to work over the bars with steam-dredges. 

I had not gone a mile above the Forks before I came 
upon both bear and moose tracks. Bear tracks were 
astonishingly numerous. There was hardly a bar or 
spot of soft ground anpvhere which did not show traces 
of these animals. At the foot of a remarkable slide 
which I passed late in the afternoon the plantigrade 
population had left evidences of being particularly plen- 
tiful. There were tracks of big bears, little bears, mid- 
dle-sized bears; here papa bear had stalked along the 
beach on business or pleasure intent; there mamma bear 
and two cublets had been promenading to take the eve- 
ning air. From the lack of big claw marks I could see 



96 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

that all the tracks were those of black or brown bears, 
but the mountains that were closing in on the river from 
the east are known to contain grizzlies, and not long 
before an old prospector had been driven out by their 
persistent inquisitiveness as to his business in that local- 
ity. For the most part grizzlies remain in the high hills 
and mountains and only occasionally come down into 
the valleys. 

We camped about three-quarters of a mile above the 
slide I have mentioned, and while we were eating supper 
we happened to notice some animal swimming the river 
toward the slide. 

" It swims high," said Joe, after a careful look. " It's 
a bear." 

My glasses confirmed his conclusion, and through 
them I watched the animal wade ashore on a gravel-bar 
island and then lope in characteristically lumbering 
bruin fashion to the little slough beyond, cross it, and 
disappear on the slide. 

"He seems in a hurry," laughed Joe. "He must be 
a bachelor looking for a war widow." 

"Too bad that it's too dark to go after him," I re- 
turned regretfully. "Why couldn't he have made his 
crossing when I was on that slide .? " 

At noon next day, after a hard struggle with the 
current, we reached the mouth of the Omineca, a wide, 
shallow, swift stream, which contributes about a fifth 
of the water of the Finlay, and is its largest tributary 
from the west. Immense gravel-bars extend up and 
down the Finlay on both sides of the Omineca's mouth, 



BUCKING THE FINLAY 97 

while opposite it the bank is higher, and on this we 
lunched. The bank had been burned over years before 
and was now overgrown with poplar saplings, beneath 
which the ground bore a thick mat of wild-strawberry 
vines. The place was evidently a favorite camping spot 
with the Indians, and we noticed an old grave. 

"This is just the kind of place the Siwash like," said 
Joe. "It's a lot pleasanter to them to lie round a camp 
and let bears and moose come to them than it is to climb 
around in the mountains. A Siwash backs away from 
anything that looks like work. Most of their camps are 
on spots like this — overlooking a bar — and somebody 
always is on the lookout. It's good-by to any moose 
that shows himself. If they don't see but one animal 
a week they're satisfied." 

Looking up the valley of the Omineca, we had a fine 
view of the distant Omineca or Wolverine Mountains. 
This range, some of whose rugged peaks rise high enough 
to bear patches of perpetual snow, has never been thor- 
oughly explored, but the course of the river itself is 
fairly well known, and there were formerly some mining- 
camps on its tributaries. About seven miles in a straight 
line above its mouth the Omineca cuts through a rocky 
ridge of gneiss and mica-schist, forming the gloomy 
Black Canyon. To the west of the headwaters there is 
said to be a glacier covering three square miles of terri- 
tory, and there is also a peculiar natural curiosity known 
as the "Big Kettle." This "Kettle" is at the top of a 
conical mound about fifteen feet high, and from it strong 
puff^s of a sulphurous gas escape. Small birds, bushy- 



98 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

tailed rats, and even owls have been found dead at the 
bottom of this vent or fumarole. The Indians assert 
that the "Kettle" is the habitation of evil spirits, and 
they declare that birds flying over it are mysteriously 
killed in mid-air. One of the white men who has seen 
it reports that "about an acre around the ^Kettle' is 
built up of a spring-deposited rock resembling traver- 
tine. Many mineralized springs seep out, forming stag- 
nant pools and oozy patches of reddish and yellow mud." 
Not far above the mouth of the Ospica, which enters 
the Finlay from the eastward about a mile above the 
mouth of the Omineca, we were paddling quietly along 
under a bank in order to avoid the current, when there 
was a sudden scurrying about on top of the bank out of 
our sight, and then a crashing of small brush. To run 
the bow of the canoe against the bank, to leap out, rifle 
in hand, and dash up the bank was the work of no more 
than a quarter of a minute. But the poplar saplings 
grew very thick, and no animal was in sight. Ten feet 
back from the edge of the bank, however, there was a 
sandy spot that bore the imprint of a beast's form, and 
there were fresh bear tracks roundabout. A little bear 
had been taking his noon siesta there, not thirty feet 
away from us. The episode is typical of many experi- 
ences with bears. On the McLeod River some years ago 
a bear sneaked right through our pack-train, which was 
stretched out for two or three hundred yards on a trail 
that ran through thick, scrubby jack-pine, and none of 
us saw hair nor hide of him. We would never even 
have been aware of his presence if one of us had not 



BUCKING THE FINLAY 99 

happened to notice where bruin's paw had blotted out 
a fresh cayuse track in the mud. 

Ice formed again that night, and we were hopeful 
that it would put the mosquitoes out of business, for 
they had been very trying at some of the camps and 
often bothersome even on the river. I am very suscep- 
tible to the mosquito, and a few of them can drive me 
almost frantic. I readily agree with both the French- 
Canadian and Mark Twain regarding these pests. The 
former declared that "eet is not so much his bite as his 
damn hum," while Mark insisted that he objected not 
to the mosquito but to his business. On retiring to my 
tent at night I would invariably adjust the cheese-cloth 
front with great care and then proceed to exterminate 
any of the hummers who had managed to accompany 
me inside. When one has plenty of matches, about as 
good a way as any to do this is to singe the pesky crea- 
tures. 

Next morning we came in sight of a great slide on 
the east bank, and Joe said: "That's as far up the river 
as I have ever been." 

"Then we'll call this place Joe Lavoie's Farthest 
North," said I, and many times thereafter we laughingly 
referred to the spot by this appellation. 

Henceforth neither of us had any personal knowledge 
of the region we were penetrating. 

As if to welcome us to the unknown, three willow 
grouse, a mother and two callow young things, stood on 
the edge of the slide to watch the explorers go by, and 
when we turned in their direction, they perched in low 



loo ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

trees. A few hours later three willow-grouse were boil- 
ing in a pot over a^ camp-fire and ultimately found a 
resting-place where they would best serve the purpose of 
advancing the expedition. 

That afternoon, as we were rounding an immense 
gravel-bar, I heard the distant measured explosion of a 
gasolene engine from up the river, and I called Joe's 
attention to the sound. 

"\It must be the Huston party," said he. "We'll 
land' and wait for them and give them the mail we 
brought from the Forks." 

Around the bend there presently came in sight two 
long wooden boats lashed together and containing five 
men. The party made a landing a little above us, and a 
tall, slender young man, who introduced himself as Mr. 
Huston, came down the beach carrying a caribou shank, 
which he kindly presented to us. Before long I became 
acquainted with the rest of the party — Mr. Sirdevan, 
Doctor Thornton, Angus Sherwood, and Bob McWil- 
liams. For half an hour or so we foregathered there on 
the beach, we listening to the tale of their experiences 
up the river and they to our news of the war and of the 
outside world in general. 

They had been on a prospecting trip to the Long 
Canyon, but as to their success in this respect they said 
nothing. They did, however, have many tales to tell 
of their hunting experiences. They asserted that on the 
river they had seen many geese, some of them not yet 
able to fly, and, as they had a twenty-gauge shotgun, 
they had made a great slaughter, so great, in fact, that 



BUCKING THE FINLAY loi 

we saw practically no geese at all. They had made a 
trip back into the mountains from the Long Canyon and 
had there killed several caribou, a couple of goats, and 
two sheep. McWilliams had also "gut shot" a grizzly, 
but the beast had escaped into a thicket. They had the 
skins of the caribou with them but, of course, not the 
horns, which had been still in "velvet"; they also had 
the horns of the sheep and goats. One pair of the goat 
horns was very good, but the sheep horns were small. 
The party were quite nonplussed by the color of the 
sheep and by the smallness of the horns. They had 
evolved a theory that perhaps the specimens they had 
slain were very aged animals. In reality, of course, the 
animals were not the bighorns of the United States and 
southern British Columbia, of which alone these men 
had heard, but Stone's mountain-sheep; this fact ac- 
counted for the unexpected color, while the smallness of 
the horns was due not to age but youth ! 

While on the trip Huston had had an opportunity 
repeatedly to try out a well-known .22 caliber high- 
power rifle, and his verdict and that of Sherwood, who 
is an experienced hunter, was that it was not suitable 
for big game. They declared that only repeated shots 
in a vital spot would bring down caribou. Their experi- 
ence tends to prove what really is not a matter for seri- 
ous dispute, namely, that a .22 caliber gun, no matter 
what its striking energy may be, is not the weapon to 
use on big game. Big game can, of course, be killed 
with it, but it has not the stopping power of a larger- 
caliber gun, and it is far from suitable for a country in 



I02 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

which at any time the hunter may be called upon to 
drop a grizzly. 

Early next morning, while we were still in camp, a 
family of Fort Grahame Siwash paddled down the river 
past us, and Joe talked to them a little, but they did 
not stop. It was a most unusual Indian family, being 
so large that it took two canoes — a big dugout and an- 
other craft of spruce bark — ^to hold all the big and little 
Siwash that made it up. If all the aboriginal couples 
in that region had followed the example of this worthy 
pair there would be no "race suicide" in the Finlay val- 
ley and no gradual decline in the Siwash population. I 
gazed at the unusual sight with approval, but I could 
not help reflecting that it must take a lot of rustling on 
the part of papa Siwash and his grown-up son to keep 
all those mouths filled with moose meat. 

Throughout most of its course the Finlay occupies 
part of a most remarkable intermontane valley, which 
is thus described by Mr. McConnell, of the Canadian 
Geological Survey: 

"The great Intermontane valley . . . forms one of 
the most important topographical features of British 
Columbia. It crosses the international boundary about 
longitude 115° 10' W. and runs in a direction N. 33° W. 
along the western base of the Rocky Mountains, separ- 
ating the latter from the Selkirks and other ranges on 
the west, for a distance of over eight hundred miles. It 
is entirely independent of the present drainage system 
of the country, as it is occupied successively, beginning 
at the boundary, by a number of rivers belonging to 



BUCKING THE FINLAY 103 

distinct systems, among which are the Kootanie, the 
Columbia, Canoe River, the Fraser, Bad River, the 
Parsnip, the Finlay, and the Tochieca. ... Its width 
varies from two to fifteen miles, and it is everywhere 
enclosed, except for some distance along the west bank 
of the Parsnip, by mountain ranges varying in height 
from 3,000 to 6,000 feet or more above the valley. . . . 

"The age of the valley has not been worked out, but 
it is evident that it long antedates the inception of the 
present drainage system of the country, and may have 
been in existence before the elevation of the Rocky 
Mountains proper. Rocks of Tertiary Age (probably 
Miocene) are supposed by Doctor Dawson to underlie 
part of the southern portion of the valley, while sand- 
stones and conglomerates of Laramie Age are present 
along both the Parsnip and Finlay. Glacial deposits 
are present throughout its whole extent." 

The Parsnip-Finlay section of this great valley con- 
tains timber that will ultimately be of value to the 
world, though much of the forest has recently been 
burned, while the rest is comparatively small stuff that 
has grown up after old fires. There are also hundreds 
of thousands of acres of land that can be used for agri- 
culture. Doubtless, however, the role in which this 
section of the valley will chiefly figure in the future will 
be as the natural route for a railroad to Alaska, the 
building of which cannot be, I take it, many years 
distant. 

Throughout the hundred and sixty miles that the 
Finlay follows it the floor of the valley consists, except 



104 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

for one short stretch at Deserter's Canyon, of deposits 
of sand, gravel, and soil carried thither either by the 
river itself or by glaciers of an earlier period. The 
course of the river, except for a few stretches, notably 
one of about a dozen miles above the entrance of the 
Ospica and another above Paul's Branch, is devious 
and crooked to the last degree. The current is very 
rapid, averaging perhaps four or^five miles an hour, 
with many stretches where it is much swifter and a few 
where it is slower. 

In certain places, for example below the Omenica, 
great tracts of ground, ten, twenty, forty, even a hun- 
dred acres, had slid down to the river, carrying forest 
and everything with them. Below Paul's Branch we 
saw a slide that had come down the spring before and 
that had for a time completely blocked the river, which 
there is approximately two hundred yards wide. Hun- 
dreds of thousands of tons had been precipitated into the 
stream, and what remained formed a large island in the 
middle of the river. 

Another feature of the Finlay is the rapidity with 
which it changes its course. The sandy, gravelly soil is 
exceedingly susceptible to erosion and requires hardly 
more than a touch of water to set it crumbling and dis- 
solving. During the spring floods the fierce current will 
undermine acres along a bank in a single night, cutting 
new channels and sweeping down the forest trees by 
thousands. When the flood recedes, many of the trees 
that have just fallen retain a hold by their roots upon 
the bank and, lying half submerged, form dangerous 



BUCKING THE FINLAY 105 

sweepers, of which the canoeman must be wary or else 
come to grief. By far the greater number of trees, how- 
ever, are swept completely away. Most such trees are 
tall, slender spruce, and the grinding ice and the pull 
and thrust of the current forcing the trees against banks 
and other obstacles, soon strip off the branches, leaving 
the trunks as bare as fishing-poles, but with a matting 
of heavy roots still remaining at the butts. 

When the river is falling, such trees go drifting down 
across the gravel-bars top first, their roots catching at 
the gravel beneath and leaving long furrows. Many 
such trees finally hang upon the bars in this way and 
remain there until the next high water drifts them off. 
Most trees, however, ultimately find a grave in the vast 
log-jams that form at the heads of islands, along the 
shores, and across the inlets of old channels. There are 
thousands of such jams, and many are of immense ex- 
tent. The longest that I recall lies some distance below 
Pete Toy's Bar, is well-nigh a mile in length, and con- 
tains tens of thousands of logs. 

In fighting one's way up-stream, one must perforce 
keep in the quieter water along the bank, and often the 
canoe must pass close beside logs beneath which the cur- 
rent sets fiercely. Only constant watchfulness and skill 
can prevent the canoe from being drawn beneath such 
logs. Should this happen at a single log, there would 
remain some hope of saving life and the canoe, but a 
jam is a different matter. The current usually sucks 
under the jams with resistless power, and instances have 
occurred in which men and boats have been drawn under 



io6 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

and have never been seen again. Unless the occupants 
can manage to spring upon the jam before their craft 
goes under it, their fate is sealed. 

In our ascent we were careful to give the jams as 
wide a berth as possible, and would always undergo the 
strenuous work of making a traverse to the other shore 
rather than attempt to pass up near a jam against which 
the current set. Now and then, though very rarely, we 
found jams on both sides, and in such a case we would 
take the side that seemed less dangerous. 

In a rather wide experience with rivers, I have never 
seen one so profusely furnished with log-jams as is the 
Finlay, and neither do I know one that is in the same 
class with it as regards sand and gravel bars. Much of 
the vast floor of the valley is an immense bed of sand 
and gravel, and the stream in its constant shifting digs 
this up in immense quantities and deposits it in bars of 
perfectly enormous extent. In places, also, the river 
has cut a deep channel down into the gravel, so that 
one passes immense gravel cliffs, hundreds of feet high 
and even miles long. These cliffs occur on several 
stretches of the river, but are particularly noticeable in 
the stretch lying between the Ackie and Paul's Branch. 
I believe I am speaking conservatively and after due 
consideration when I say that there is enough gravel in 
the Finlay valley to supply every pike in the United 
States for a hundred years. 

Some of the gravel-bars are very beautiful, and I 
found it a real pleasure to walk over them. The stones 
and pebbles are of every imaginable shape and color, 




Cabin of a trapper wno went to the w. 




Thi; largest log jam that i recall lies 



Toy's Bar. 



SOME DISTANCE BELOW PeTE 



BUCKING THE FINLAY 107 

and many have been given a high poHsh by the endless 
action of water. I am a great admirer of boulder walls 
and pillars, and it was a source of real regret to me that 
I could not select a few carloads of those gorgeously 
beautiful stones for use in building a boulder-concrete 
house ! 

The bars, unless they lie where they are swept clean 
every year by swift high water, do not long remain bar- 
ren. The seeds of balsam-poplar are profusely scattered 
there by the agencies of nature, and in a few years the 
bar is covered with a dense thicket. Spruce, too, finds 
a foothold, and in a few decades a fine forest stands 
where the river once ran. 

Meanwhile the river has been careering about, tear- 
ing down forest elsewhere, but there comes a time when 
it once more shifts back toward its old location and be- 
gins undermining the new forest. In hundreds of places 
the traveller on the Finlay sees in banks that are being 
washed down the half-rotten timbers of log jams of 
generations before, jams that have been covered over 
with soil and overgrown with trees and now are once 
more exposed to view by the relentless river. 

Thus the history of the Finlay and its valley is a 
story of endless change, of ceaseless destruction, con- 
struction, and again destruction. 

In some places the stream was split into half a dozen 
channels, surrounding numerous islands, and it was often 
difficult to determine which channel we ought to take. 
Log jams and bars were ever present, and we encoun- 
tered rapids that could be surmounted only by lining the 



io8 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

canoe up or by springing overboard and walking the craft 
up. To cross from one side of the river to the other in- 
variably provoked a fierce battle, and not infrequently it 
was only by using our last ounce of strength that we 
managed to cross above some dreaded log-jam. Such 
work was wearying in the extreme, even to me, who did 
only a small part of it, and I could not but admire the 
strength, the skill, the ready resource with which Joe 
invariably solved every problem that presented itself. 
As a canoeman he was undoubtedly a past master. 
Though there were scores of times when a slight mistake 
could easily have been disastrous, he never made it. 

Often we had magnificent views of mountains rising 
high on both sides of the stream. On the left lay the 
gneissic ridge which begins at the Black Canyon of the 
Omineca and runs northward along the Finlay, finally 
culminating in some fine rugged peaks that tower a full 
mile above the river. On the right the main Rockies 
rose chain after chain, and through passes in the outer 
range we now and then caught splendid glimpses of 
rugged white peaks which seemed to challenge us to 
come and climb them. Far ahead the mountains pinched 
in upon the river, while summit upon summit, each 
seemingly taller and more rugged than the one before 
it, burst into view. Of scenic wonders there was assur- 
edly no lack. 

We were in good shape to appreciate these marvels, 
for, though we were working hard, we were living well. 
In addition to our ordinary provisions, we had the cari- 
bou shank that Huston had been good enough to give 



BUCKING THE FINLAY 109 

us and also several grouse, and both caribou and grouse 
went well either fried or in a mulligan. 

Mulligans are made by boiling bits of meat — the 
more kinds the better — with a little of everything else 
that is obtainable. One mulligan on this stage of the 
trip contained some caribou meat, a ruffed grouse, some 
bits of pork, rice, potatoes, dehydrated corn, canned 
tomatoes, macaroni, salt, pepper, a dash of dehydrated 
celery, and probably some other ingredients that I have 
forgotten. The celery gave the added touch needed to 
transform the mulligan from merely good food into a 
dish fit for the gods, and I advise every one who goes 
on such a trip to take along a can of this wonder-working 
article. 



CHAPTER VII 
A LUCKY DAY 

Late on the fourth day from the Forks, after a 
strenuous time bucking swift water, we camped in a 
grove of spruce beside the river and passed as comfor- 
table a night as the mosquitoes would permit. The 
Huston party had camped there on their way up, and 
near the ashes of their camp-fire I picked up a loaded 
20-gauge shotgun-shell. Evidently they had had great 
quantities of ammunition or else had been very careless 
with it, for I later picked up another such shell at their 
camping-place at the foot of Deserter's Canyon. We 
knew that we could not be far from Fort Grahame, and, 
in fact, we had had hopes of making the post that after- 
noon, but had been disappointed. Around us lay a per- 
fect labyrinth of sloughs, channels, and islands, forming 
a region eminently fitted to breed a particularly ferocious 
variety of the pest above mentioned. 

When we set out next morning, we felt confident that 
an hour or two would bring us to the post, but noon 
came and passed and still we were fighting our way up- 
stream with no fort yet in sight. About two o'clock 
Joe was poling the canoe along near a great gravel-bar 
and I was making a short cut overland toward the head 
of the bar when an adventure befell us. 

The gravel-bar on which I was walking was about 

no 



A LUCKY DAY III 

half a mile long and perhaps two hundred yards wide; 
it was, in fact, an island, being cut off from the forest- 
covered bank at its back by a shallow slough, which in 
places was only a few feet wide. It was highest next 
the main river, up which Joe was poling the canoe, and 
near the river there was a tangle of drifted logs. From 
where I was walking I could see behind this jam to the 
head of the bar, but I could not see the river side of the 
jam. Thinking that the jam might form an obstacle in 
getting around which Joe would need my assistance, I 
walked out toward the river to get in touch with him. 
When I reached the low ridge close to the shore, I no- 
ticed that Joe had stopped the canoe, and when he saw 
me he motioned wildly for me to hurry to him and 
pointed up the river. I looked in the direction indicated 
and saw an animal that I recognized at once as a bear, 
striking out from the pile of logs toward the opposite 
bank. 

To run down to the edge of the water, wade out in 
the shallow water to the canoe and scramble aboard 
was the work of a moment. Little was said, and that 
in a low voice, but we both fell to with our paddles and 
soon had our craft leaping through the water toward 
the swimming bruin. As we went we had time to cast 
some hurried glances about us and to size up the situ- 
ation. The river at this point was fully two hundred 
yards wide, and on the farther side rose a steep bank, 
perhaps ten feet high, lined with "sweepers." The cur- 
rent, which was very swift, set in toward this bank and 
ran much more rapidly than on the opposite side. 



112 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

**That current will help us," said Joe in a low voice. 
"He'll feel it pretty soon." 

Sure enough, it was not long before the bear began 
to have a hard time stemming this current; in fact, it 
began to sweep him down a bit. 

Whether or not the beast up to this moment had seen 
us I am not positively sure, but he must have done so. 
From a later study of the tracks on the gravel-bar I 
decided that he had been fooling about in the jam, and 
had either seen or smelled me and had decided that he 
would better swim the river instead of crossing the bar 
in full sight of me and trying to reach the forest beyond. 
Probably he also heard Joe's pike pole striking the gravel 
bottom. However, it is barely possible that he had 
neither seen, heard, nor smelled either of us, but had 
chanced to choose this inopportune time to cross the 
river on some errand. 

In the hope of flustering the animal and perhaps 
causing him to turn back or swim directly up-stream 
we now shouted loudly, creating what to him must have 
seemed the very deuce of a racket. For a few seconds 
he paused, turned his head in our direction, lifted him- 
self as high in the water as possible, and surveyed us. 
Then he once more struck out as hard as he could swim 
for the opposite shore. 

But bruin had made an unfortunate choice when he 
decided to cross the river at that particular time and 
place. Although he must have been close to three hun- 
dred yards away when we first set out in pursuit, we 
travelled so fast and the current carried him down-stream 



A LUCKY DAY 113 

so much that it presently became apparent that before 
he could get ashore he would be exposed to great danger. 
The current was our ally, and fight it as he would the 
bear could not escape from the trap into which he had 
got himself. 

When we were within sixty yards I laid down the 
paddle and caught up my heavy rifle. 

"Don't shoot until he is close to the bank," Joe cried 
warningly. "If you kill him in deep water he'll sink 
sure." 

Of this fact I was already aware, for Gibson had told 
me that only the year before he had shot a grizzly in 
Parsnip River, and the beast had sunk like a stone. So 
I waited until the bear neared the shore, and meanwhile 
Joe paddled a little closer. When bruin was within a 
dozen feet of the bank I aimed at the point where his 
back disappeared in the water. I did not want to shoot 
at the head, for I knew that the heavy bullet would tear 
that portion of his anatomy to smithereens and would 
ruin the skin. It was like shooting at the edge of a 
saucer at fifty yards, and the canoe was bucking like a 
bronco in the heavy swell, but I seemed to strike the 
spot where I aimed, throwing up a great splash of water 
and penetrating, I then had no doubt, the animal's back. 
He kept on, however, and I sent in another shot that 
threw up another splash, though exactly where it struck 
I could not see. Just then the animal's forefeet touched 
the bank and he pulled himself partly over a submerged 
log, only to fall back into the river. I attributed this 
to his wounds, and he seemed so weak that for a moment; 



114 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

I hesitated to fire again, believing he was done for. 
But by another effort he managed to pull himself out 
of the water over the log and went scrambling up the 
bank with such rapidity that I hastily fired again. At 
the shot he lost all holds and fell back with a resounding 
splash into the river. 

We hastily ran the canoe up to the bank, and I seized 
him before he had time to drift away. He was beyond 
even struggling, and by dint of much heaving and tug- 
ging we managed to get him into the canoe. His weight 
put the gunwales down almost to the level of the water, 
but by careful handling we got back to the other shore 
and soon had him out upon the beach. 

At first Joe was confident that it was a young grizzly, 
but a closer examination of the claws and pelage finally 
convinced us that it was a brown bear, and not a very 
large one at that. The sex was female. 

Brown bears, it may be remarked here, are in this 
section of Canada merely a color phase of the black 
bear. It is not an uncommon thing to see a she bear 
with one black and one brown cub, and Lavoie says that 
once on Willow River, a tributary of the Eraser, he saw 
a she with two black cubs and one brown one. Black 
is by far the most common color. The brown animals 
are of varying shades. A skin I saw at the forks — from 
an animal trapped by Lavoie the winter before — was a 
light yellow in color, almost a straw color. Even experts 
are often fooled into believing that brown bears are 
grizzlies or that grizzlies are brown bears, and have dis- 
covered their mistake only after a close scrutiny. One 



A LUCKY DAY 115 

of the main distinguishing features is, of course, the 
claws, which are comparatively small and short in the 
"brown" bear and very large and long in the grizzly. 
Even Mr. Wright, of Spokane, who is the author of two 
excellent books on bears, and who probably knows more 
about these animals than any other man living, confesses 
that once he attacked with a knife a supposed brown 
bear that two of his dogs had cornered, and that he 
fought the animal for some time before he realized that 
it was really a grizzly. 

When the animal we had killed was skinned, I was 
astonished to discover that only one bullet — the last — 
had found its mark. Evidently the first had struck a 
bit too low and had glanced from the water, while the 
second, Joe said, had gone a trifle too high. The experi- 
ence helps to explain why it is that game sometimes 
manages to "walk off with so much lead" — the real rea- 
son being that not much, if any, of the lead has hit the 
animal at all. If I had not fired the third shot and the 
bear had escaped, I should always have said and devoutly 
believed that he got away badly wounded. 

The final shot which had done the business had 
struck just at the junction of the shoulders and had 
penetrated the body cavity, tearing heart and lungs 
into shreds. Evidently the beast had never drawn an- 
other breath or had another heart-beat. 

The animal was very fat and, considering the fact 
that it was killed on the 20th of August, the pelt was in 
good condition, though not yet prime. The stomach 
was filled almost to bursting with blueberries and high- 



Ii6 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

bush cranberries, nor had bruin been at all choice in 
rejecting the stems and twigs on which the berries grew. 
Taking the skin and the hindquarters of the bear, we 
once more embarked and, on rounding the next bend, 
came in sight of Fort Grahame. We had killed the bear 
almost in the front yard of the fort ! 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE LAST OUTPOST 

The post we were now approaching stands in a small 
clearing on the east bank of the Finlay, with a back- 
ground of Rockies rising up behind it. Although digni- 
fied with the name of "fort," it consists merely of a 
rough log store, a log storehouse, and a couple of smaller 
cabins. Scattered here and there behind it stand three 
or four log shacks built by more enterprising Indians, 
and there are usually a few Indian tents pitched in the 
neighborhood. 

Half a dozen Siwash and several snarling dogs had 

gathered on the bank to watch our approach, and we 

were cordially welcomed to the post by the man in 

charge, Mr. William Fox. Except for a short interval 

of about three years Fox has been stationed at Grahame 

since 1893, and has been associated with the Finlay 

region much longer than any other civilized person who 

now resides there. He came originally, he told us, from 

Manitoba, and he is himself partly of Indian blood. His 

first white ancestor in America was an Irishman named 

O'Connell. This man, being stationed on Hudson's Bay 

at a post of the Great Company, contracted an alliance 

with a Chippewayan girl and later became a "free 

trader." Subsequently the family settled on Red River 

117 



Ii8 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

in Manitoba, and for some reason changed their name to 
Fox. The present Mr. Fox years ago married a daughter 
of Pierre, chief of the Grahame Indians, and by her had 
a number of children, but his wife is now dead, and the 
children are outside being educated. I found Fox well in- 
formed about the world, a great reader, and very obliging. 

When we came to unload the bear meat and skin, I 
noticed that the Indians, who were squatting on the 
bank watching the proceedings with interest, scowled 
darkly, and it was quite evident that they were far from 
pleased. To their mind the Finlay region belongs to 
them, and all the game within it, and they resent the 
killing of game by white men. From scattered sentences 
we gathered that they were especially displeased because 
the animal had been killed so close to the fort. How- 
ever, we ignored their scowling faces and blandly told 
them that if they needed meat they would find the fore- 
quarters of the bear on the bar below. Three or four of 
them soon embarked in a dugout and later returned with 
what remained of the bear. For once I had the pleasure 
of killing meat for the aborigines ! 

These Indians are of the Sikanni tribe, as are those 
about Fort McLeod. In color, cast of countenance, and 
lack of beards, they are decidedly Asiatic in appearance 
— even more so than are the Redmen farther east. If 
one of them were dressed in Japanese costume and turned 
loose on the streets of Tokio, only his behavior would 
betray the disguise. The more I saw of these north- 
western Siwash the more inclined I became to accept 
the theory that America was first peopled from Asia by 



THE LAST OUTPOST 119 

way of Behring Strait — either that or else Asia was 
peopled from America, for I see no real reason why one 
Is not about as Hkely as the other. 

Aleck, who Is a son of Chief Pierre and who is the 
best hunter in the tribe, did not go with the others after 
the bear meat but remained sitting on the bank, smoking 
his pipe and talking to us. I found him to be a really 
superior Indian, speaking fair English (which most of 
the tribe cannot do), and having some idea of the world 
outside, which none of his people have ever seen. He 
told me that the spring had been very bad for hunting, 
and that the cold weather had held on so late that the 
"whistlers" had been slow to fatten. He and his family 
had been up in the mountains after these animals to 
make robes, and to get the fat, but had found the ani- 
mals so lean that they had come back to the post. 

At that time I had some notion of penetrating the 
mountain range I desired to examine by way of the 
Ackie, a stream that empties into the Finlay from the 
east, about a dozen miles above Deserter's Canyon, and 
I tried to draw Aleck out as to the character of the 
country along that river. I struck fire at once. 

"Prospectors come into country, scare out all the 
game," he muttered. "Indian kill no meat. Indian 
starve." 

Evidently he did not relish the idea of our going into 
the Ackie country, which, we learned later, was his own 
particular hunting-ground. Lavoie now took a hand. 

"This not prospector man, this government man," he 
said impressively. "He no kill game, except for little 



I20 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

meat; he take 'um picture bears, moose, caribou, sheep, 
goats, for magazine." 

Alas, poor Aleck ! He swallowed this tale with 
avidity and seemed greatly relieved to hear that I was 
neither a prospector nor a hunter, while he was power- 
fully impressed by the information that I was a "gov- 
ernment man," for these aborigines have a vague terror 
of and respect for the mysterious "government." Joe's 
description did not precisely square with the real facts 
in the case, but it hardly seemed necessary to disabuse 
Aleck of the impression thus created. So I let him 
look in my Graflex, arranged to take his picture next 
morning, and we became confidential friends. Hence- 
forth any question I asked him about the Ackie or any 
other region he made haste to answer to the best of his 
ability. 

We gave Fox one of the bear hams, and we had sup- 
per and breakfast at his cabin, we contributing, of 
course, to the meals. He praised our mulligan with 
celery flavoring highly. He is able to live pretty well 
at the post, as the Indians generally keep him supplied 
with fresh meat, and he has a garden in which he raises 
potatoes, turnips, beets, cabbage, and rhubarb. His 
potatoes, like those at the Forks, had been frozen to 
the ground by the frost of August i6, but some of the 
hardier vegetables were still flourishing. 

A trail cut out by the Royal Northwest Mounted 
Police in the days of the Klondike rush passes Fort 
Grahame on the way from Fort St. John on Peace River, 
two hundred and eighteen miles distant, to the Tele- 



THE LAST OUTPOST 121 

graph Trail and the Skeena River, but it has not been 
kept cleared and Is now practically impassable. This 
trail was at one time practicable for pack-horses, but 
there are now no horses in the Finlay country. The In- 
dians of the region have never had horses, but depend 
wholly on canoes, dogs, and shank's mare for transporta- 
tion purposes. 

At the time Fox first took charge at Fort Grahame 
these Indians numbered about two hundred, but some 
of them have removed to Bear Lake, while others have 
died, and there are now only about seventy bucks, 
klooches, and children. Physically they are a better- 
looking lot than either the McLeod Lake Siwash or the 
Beavers at Hudson's Hope and Fort St. John, though 
some of them are afflicted with tuberculosis and other 
diseases. They claim to be Christians, and at the head 
of the graves in their well-kept graveyard on a hillside 
opposite and above the fort they place crosses, but Fox 
says they have had only one visit from a priest in twenty 
years. Unlike the Crees and some other tribes east of 
the mountains, they do not have a written language, 
but they are able to communicate certain ideas, such as 
where a party has gone or whether it has killed game, 
by signs scrawled on blazed trees or stakes. We saw 
many of these signals along the river. 

These Indians are still strictly in the hunting stage. 
Fox told us that a few had tried raising potatoes, but 
that they had lost interest before the crop was made. 
They live almost entirely on meat, eked out by what 
supplies they obtain at the post. From the store they 



122 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

expect to buy part of their clothing, a little flour and 
other luxuries, and they mean to keep themselves sup- 
plied with guns, ammunition, tea, and tobacco, in ex- 
change for skins and fur. As the cost of bringing sup- 
plies to the fort is ten cents per pound, and even flour 
sells for twenty-two cents a pound, it is clear that the 
Siwash cannot buy "white man's grub" in any very 
large quantities. ^ 

The supplies are brought in by a freighter named 
Ross, who does the work with a long, wooden boat. As 
we descended Parsnip River we had met him and his 
crew — one white man and a Siwash — returning from their 
second and final trip of the year. 

Bear, sheep, goat, caribou, and whistlers are slain 
occasionally and lend variety to the aboriginal bill of 
fare, as do berries of various kinds, but moose is the 
staff of life, with rabbit standing second. Fox estimates 
that twenty years ago these Indians killed fully three 
hundred moose a year, but there are fewer Indians now 
and also fewer moose, so that the annual kill is much 
smaller. In winter the squaws snare great numbers of 
snow-shoe rabbits, and it not infrequently happens that 
a camp has nothing whatever to eat except rabbit meat. 
This state of affairs is considered the next worst thing 
to starving, as rabbit is not very toothsome as a steady 
diet and seems to have little sustaining power. Still rab- 
bits are better than nothing, and when they are scarce, 
which happens about every seven years, both lynxes 
and Siwash are likely to be frequently on short commons. 

The Fort Grahame Indian does not care much for 



THE LAST OUTPOST 123 

mountain-goats, of which there are many on certain 
ranges of mountains in the Finlay country. In some 
locaUties, unless very hungry, the Siwash hunter will 
not hunt them at all, as they eat a variety of wild garlic 
which gives the meat an unpleasant taste. Where garlic 
is not so common the meat is better, while the young 
animals are, of course, the better eating everywhere. 
Far up on the Fox River range I later saw a tiny moun- 
tain lakelet beside which some Siwash had killed a 
mountain-goat kid and had picked the bones clean. 

The Siwash kills many black and brown bears for 
their skins, flesh, and grease, which latter he renders out 
— that is, his squaw does — and sometimes sells to trap- 
pers for fifty cents a pound. There are some grizzlies in 
the region of the fort, and Fox pointed out to us a moun- 
tain that is more or less frequented by these animals, 
but the average Siwash ** hasn't lost any grizzlies," and 
very few of these bears are killed. Many a hunter on 
seeing one of the great lumbering beasts has quietly 
stolen away without molesting him. In hunting bears 
the Indians are greatly aided by their dogs, big mongrel- 
looking animals, in which "husky" blood generally pre- 
dominates. 

Two Indians have been injured in the Fort Grahame 
region by grizzlies within the knowledge of Fox. One of 
them, a hunter, was walking round an uprooted tree 
with his gun on his shoulder, when a big bear suddenly 
rose up from behind the stump and gave him a slap that 
sent him spinning; the bear then moved off without 
troubling the Indian further. In the other ca§e a child 



124 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

left a camp near Pete Toy's Bar to get a pall of water 
and met a grizzly, probably a she with cubs, and was 
torn to pieces. 

The hunting-ground of these seventy Fort Grahame 
Indians is a region of enormous extent. They have 
subdivided it among the various families, like the prin- 
cipalities of a feudal kingdom. Thus old Pierre and his 
son Aleck hunt and trap the Ackie country; a younger 
brother of Aleck has the region about the mouth of Fox 
River — "my country," he later told us. 

In spite of the vast extent of their hunting-grounds, 
the Indians frequently experience starving times. Moose 
and other meat can be dried so that it will keep indefi- 
nitely, and by hunting hard and laying up a big supply 
when conditions are favorable, it would not be very diffi- 
cult for the Siwash to be always well supplied; but there 
is more of the grasshopper than of the ant in the Siwash 
make-up, and he suffers accordingly. Late November 
and December are usually the season of greatest want, 
as the snow is then soft and deep, rendering hunting 
difficult. When a crust forms, the hunters are able to 
move about more freely, while the game is greatly ham- 
pered and falls an easy prey. 

The Indian has little idea of game conservation. 
By preference he slays cows and young animals, because 
their meat is more tender, nor is he likely to neglect an 
opportunity for wholesale and wasteful slaughter. The 
desire to kill is deeply implanted in his nature, and he 
bangs away at anything living so long as his ammunition 
holds out. 



THE LAST OUTPOST 125 

The traveller hears many stories of the starving 
times. On one occasion a party of Indians who were 
camped up the Ingenica, a stream that enters the Finlay 
from the west, a good distance above Fort Grahame, 
failed to kill game for a long time. They were already 
starving when a moose came strolling almost into camp, 
but the Indian who saw it was overeager and fired and 
missed. A boy was then sent to Fort Grahame, several 
days' journey distant, to beg a supply of food from the 
fort. When the boy arrived there Fox had food set 
before him, but stopped him when he thought he had 
eaten enough. Later Fox left the room, with the result 
that the boy fell to once more on pork and beans and ate 
so much that he was ill for two days and unable to travel. 
When he recovered he started back with others for the 
starving camp with a supply of food. He reached it in 
time to prevent any one from dying, but for twelve days 
the small children had been kept lying in bed with 
scarcely a morsel to eat. 

On another occasion a party, including squaws and 
children, attempted to make their way through the 
Rockies to the post on Nelson River, far to the east- 
ward. They were unable to kill game and reached such 
a state of starvation that the adults agreed that if by 
the end of the next day they had got nothing they would 
abandon the children (possibly this meant "eat them") 
and make their way out of the region as fast as possible. 
On the afternoon of the fateful day a hunter saw two 
moose, which escaped him and ran far up on the slope 
of a high mountain. There they or some other agency 



126 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

started a snow-slide, which carried them back into the 
valley, where they fell an easy prey. Thus the children 
were saved. 

In the days of the Klondike rush many would-be 
miners endeavored to reach the new El Dorado by 
ascending the Peace and the Finlay, but few ever got 
through. The sudden incursion of the white men into 
their country greatly wrought up the Indians of the 
region. One party of white men, headed by an old pio- 
neer from Montana, attempted to get through with a 
pack-train from Half-Way River and, not far from 
Grahame, struck a hunting trail in which a couple of 
Indians had set some bear snares. The lead pack-horse, 
a mare of which the Montana man was very fond, ran 
into one of these snares and brought the log from above 
down upon her head with such force as almost to break 
her neck. The white men cut the snare and extricated 
her, but half a mile farther on she ran into another, with 
similar results. The Montana man then walked ahead 
of the outfit and cut the snares — five more of them — 
when he came to them, and the outfit got through to 
Grahame without further mishap. The Indians quickly 
discovered the destruction of their property and followed 
the pack-train to the fort, and a row became imminent. 

"You must do something for the Indians,'* Fox said 
to the white men. 

"The white men meant you no harm," he explained 
to the aggrieved aborigines. "They are ignorant people. 
Why, they did not even know what a bear-snare is ! 
You must overlook what they did !" 



THE LAST OUTPOST 127 

A promise of new snares and presents of tea and 
tobacco made all serene once more. 

More serious in its possibilities was a situation grow- 
ing out of a white man's stealing a pony belonging to a 
Beaver Indian in the Fort St. John country down the 
Peace. The Beavers gathered together and pursued the 
thief and the party to which he belonged to Grahame, 
and not only reclaimed the animal but formed a league 
with the Grahame Indians to drive the white intruders 
out of the country. The situation was so tense that for 
a time the sword of tragedy hung by a hair. But Fox 
managed the affair with great shrewdness and there was 
no bloodshed. 

The dislike which the Grahame Indians have for 
white men killing their game is doubtless the origin of 
a story that one hears at Finlay Forks to the effect that 
somewhere in the mountainous region about the head of 
the Ospica there is a "forbidden country" which white 
men are not permitted to enter. This region is said to 
be a veritable paradise for game, containing not only 
such common animals as bears, moose, sheep, and cari- 
bou, but large herds of elk. According to one version 
of the story, two white hunters were met at the edge of 
the forbidden tract by some Indians, who said: 

"This is Indians' hunting-ground. White men can- 
not enter. There is the trail." 

And the white men took the hint and turned back. 

I did not believe this tale, but mention in it of elk 
led me to ask Fox whether these animals were to be found 
in the Fort Grahame country. He replied that years 



128 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

before there had been elk in some places, but that now 
they had been exterminated. The last of which he had 
any knowledge was a lone bull that was killed about 
eight or ten years before in the Ackie country. 

Sheep are not plentiful in any of the mountains that 
are readily accessible from the fort. There are sheep 
to the eastward, in the country around Laurier Pass, as 
Vreeland's party discovered in their 1912 trip. There 
are also a few sheep left in the range of mountains lying 
west of the Finlay below the fort. Some years ago E. A. 
Preble's party, which came into the Finlay country by 
pack-train from Telegraph Creek on the Stickine by 
way of the Ingenica River, heard of these sheep, and, 
in the interest of the American Biological Survey, offered 
a reward for the skin and head of one of them. But the 
reward was too small to be very tempting, and the In- 
dians have not made much effort to win it, though two 
or three times they have seen the band. Whether these 
sheep are the ordinary bighorn, or Stone's sheep, I do 
not know; one guess is as good as another, and my guess 
would be Stone's sheep. As this band range country 
south of the parallel that runs through Laurier Pass, 
which at present is the southern limit where a specimen 
of Stone's sheep has been obtained and examined by 
scientists, it is possible that they may form a link be- 
tween the northern and southern sheep. It is also barely 
possible that an examination of the Omineca or Wolver- 
ine Mountains, which lie directly west of Finlay Forks, 
may contain sheep that would be worthy of scientific 
study. Not much is known of these mountains. We 



THE LAST OUTPOST 129 

saw them at a distance, but all that I would venture to 
say is that some of their peaks are rugged enough for 
sheep. 

For a period of three years not long ago Fox was 
not in the employ of the Company, and in his absence 
the Indians brought to the post the horns and a part 
of the skin of a ram. I saw these hanging in the store- 
house but did not pay much attention to them. The 
head is a fairly big one, and I should judge from the skin 
that the animal was Ovis stonei, but where the ram was 
killed Fox did not know, nor was I able to learn. He 
has since written me that he has learned from the Indians 
that the ram was killed near the trail to Bear Lake, at 
a point about seven miles west of Grahame. I now 
regret that I did not examine the head more closely. 

While at Fort Grahame on the way up we slept in 
our tents on the river-bank in front of the store. Fox 
himself had a tent pitched there, as he preferred sleeping 
in the open rather than in his cabin. Mosquitoes were 
much more troublesome at this place than any other we 
visited on the trip. Fox attributed this to the growth 
of grass in the clearing round the fort, but I believe 
there were other causes; the constant presence of human 
beings no doubt helps to attract them thither, while the 
great number of dead sloughs in the country round 
causes them to breed more plentifully than elsewhere. 
At any rate, they were both numerous and ferocious, 
and the thought that one might be bitten by a mosquito 
that had already fed from a tuberculosis or syphilis 
infected Siwash was not a pleasant one. 



130 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

Any one who has travelled in the North Country 
must have been struck by the difference in method be- 
tween the mosquitoes of that region and those of, say, 
Indiana or Ohio. In the latter country a mosquito 
often does a good deal of humming and reconnoitring 
before settling upon his intended victim, and the least 
movement is sufficient to make him take wing; in short, 
he is often as bashful and timid as an old maid contem- 
plating making a proposal in leap-year. Not so these 
Northern mosquitoes. They indulge in no ** hesitation 
waltzes." They know exactly what they want; they 
propose to get it without loss of time, and they swarm 
down upon a wretched human being like a pack of wolves 
on a broken-legged caribou. 

Mosquitoes, "bulldogs," and black flies are the great 
pests of Canada in summer. I fully agree with Thomp- 
son Seton that, if it were not for them, this North Coun- 
try during several months of the year would be "a 
human paradise." 

Luckily, freezing nights had now come; the day of 
the mosquito was almost done. Though we were to 
have troubles and trials in plenty in the later stages of 
the trip, mosquitoes were not among them. 



CHAPTER IX 
DESERTER'S CANYON 

On the morning of the 21st of August we said good- 
by to Fox and paddled off up-stream from Fort Grahame, 
the last point on Finlay River where civiHzed man has 
attempted to settle permanently. Henceforth, what- 
ever might happen, we must depend entirely upon our 
own resources and resourcefulness, for there were no 
white men farther up the river. I cannot say how 
Lavoie felt about it, but for myself I rejoiced that we 
had passed beyond the "last outpost." 

The day was cloudy, and there were frequent rains 
in the mountains, but only a few light drizzles fell in the 
valley. I rather like such days as this, when the land- 
scape is blotted out at times and then the curtain rises 
on new panoramas, while the rain, the rainbows, and 
the clouds are added to the usual wonders of nature. 
The colors of rocks and foliage are much more vivid on 
such days than on clear, sunny days, when everything 
in the landscape tends toward a dull brown. 

We were now leaving the high peaks opposite Fort 

Grahame behind us, but a fine, rugged range, bearing 

patches of snow, towered on the right-hand side of the 

valley, while straight ahead, in the far distance, appeared 

a strange white mountain, so thickly covered with rough 

excrescences that we nicknamed it ''The Wart." 

131 



132 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

We found the river very swift and troublesome. 
Only two miles above the fort it dashed between two 
log-jams and formed a vast whirlpool in which we had 
no desire to be caught. However, by using the track- 
ing rope in one place and by sneaking through eddies in 
another we got by safely and without much loss of time. 

There were many traverses to be made that day in 
order to find pole bottom along the bars, and to avoid 
the dangerous set of the current toward log-jams. Some 
hours we made perhaps two miles per hour, others a 
mile, others a half, and in one or two we deemed our- 
selves lucky to make a quarter. It was a hard day for 
Joe, and it is not surprising that that night he talked 
loudly in his sleep about "white brown bears^'I He 
seemed to have a most unpleasant time with those bears 
and piteously implored a former partner of his to shoot 
them ! 

I did not work quite so hard as did Joe, but, natu- 
rally, I worried more. The strain of working one's way 
day after day up a swift river in the wilderness is very 
wearing. It was not so much the danger that troubled 
me as the possibility of losing the canoe and outfit and 
being forced to turn back with the purpose of the trip 
unaccomplished. 

We lunched next day on a bank opposite the mouth 
of the Ingenica, a considerable stream that empties into 
the Finlay, about twenty miles north of Fort Grahame. 
An Indian trail leads up this river toward Bear Lake, 
and there are said to be bars that will yield a fair return 
to the miner. My chief memory of the stream will 



DESERTER'S CANYON 133 

always be of a splendid grove of tall, slender, white- 
trunked poplars on the north bank. 

Late that afternoon we reached a labyrinth of chan- 
nels that furnished the most puzzling problem in the 
matter of navigation we had yet seen. We solved it 
finally by tracking up one channel, drifting down a sec- 
ond, tracking up a third, and finally "wading" the 
canoe out to a point above a riffle where we could em- 
bark and fight our way to quieter water. 

Soaking wet and very weary, we camped that night 
in the "yard" of Shorty Webber's cabin on a slough six 
miles, by his reckoning, from Deserter's Canyon. At Fin- 
ley Forks, Shorty had told us to make ourselves at home 
here, but a cabin that has not been inhabited for months 
except by mice and pack-rats is not the pleasantest place 
in the world, and we preferred to pitch our tents outside. 

The cabin contained a light stove, worn-out mocca- 
sins, empty tins, old tump-lines and snow-shoes, and 
plenty of marten "stretchers." The little Dutchman 
is a good "rustler," and in the big cache outside there 
was, he had told us, the dried meat of two moose slain 
that spring. Most of his furniture was also in the cache. 

We were delayed by rain next morning, but by one 
in the afternoon we camped for lunch on a rocky beach 
on the east side of the river, just above the mouth of a 
little mountain stream that came cascading down over 
big boulders and poured itself in a mass of foam into the 
river. There were traces of old Indian camps above us, 
and, as there is a pass through the mountain chain be- 
hind, I do not doubt that hunting-parties make this 



134 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

their starting-point for trips into the region of the south- 
ern headwaters of the Ackie. In this way they avoid 
making the hard carry around Deserter's Canyon, which 
we rightly concluded was only a little above us. 

As we had had plenty of caribou and bear meat, we 
had not attempted to do any fishing since leaving the 
Parsnip, but a more ideal spot for the sport could not 
be found in a dozen kingdoms, and I yielded at once to 
the temptation. 

"Joe," said I, "you'll have to build the fire this 
time." 

"All right," he grinned. "That's a great place for 
arctics sure." 

I hastily set up my rod, selected a "black gnat," 
and cast into the white water. Instantly there was a 
swirl, a flash of a finny form, but we both scored a miss. 
A second cast proved more successful, and after a merry 
fight I held in my hands my first "arctic trout." 

As the portrait opposite shows, these are shapely 
fish, with mother-of-pearl scales and an extraordinarily 
long back fin. In reality they are not trout at all, but 
grayling. However, they are splendid biters, being taken 
most readily with flies; hard, determined fighters; and 
at that season of the year their flesh was white and 
firm and delicious beyond compare. Possibly it was be- 
cause of the romantic surroundings in which I fished for 
them, but it seemed that I enjoyed catching and eating 
these particular denizens of this cold Northern stream 
more than any other fish with which I have had any 
experience. 




"A MORE IDEAL SPOT FOR THE S 



PORT COULD NOT BE FOUND IX A DOZEN KIXODOMS. 




An Ar 



a rrc " trout "-t.iev are a shapely fish with a 



LONG BLXCK FIX. 



DESERTER'S CANYON 135 

Before lunch was ready I had caught eight In all, run- 
ning, I should say, from three-quarters of a pound to a 
pound and a half. With this the supply seemed to be 
about exhausted, as after lunch I managed to land only 
one more. These fish, in fact, are rarely caught except 
at the mouths of rapid streams or In swift ripples, and 
it does not take long to **fish out" such a river as the 
Finlay. By the time that the Finlay valley contains a 
thousand settlers, arctic-trout fishing will probably be 
practically a thing of the past. 

From the way the hills pinched In ahead, from the 
great rock masses in the river, and from the increasing 
height of the walls that hemmed the river in, we judged 
that the canyon could not be far distant, and so the event 
proved. First came a narrow passage with steep con- 
glomerate cliffs on either side, but through this passage, 
though the current was swift, we were able to make our 
way with the canoe. Beyond, the walls spread out 
again, forming a considerable basin, at the upper end 
of which there was another yet narrower passage, where 
the real canyon begins. There were indications that at 
the time of the spring thaw the lower passage is some- 
times choked with ice and trees, forming a jam that 
raises the water fully fifty feet in the basin. 

On the west side, at the lower end of the canyon, 
there is a wide sand-bar, which forms a convenient place 
of approach to the portage. We landed there and began 
the work of transporting our stuff round the canyon to 
the navigable water above. Fortunately, there is a good 
Indian path, half a mile or a little more In length, that 



136 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

leads around the canyon, but as we had much stuff and 
the way runs over a hill probably three hundred feet 
high, night drew near before we had all the loads across. 
Doubtless, it was dread of this portage and of dangers 
beyond that caused two of Finlay's canoemen to desert 
him — hence the name *' Deserter's Canyon." We ate 
supper at the landing-place, and Joe spent the night 
there; but I took another load across and pitched my 
tent at the upper end of the portage, in order to make 
sure that no bear or other prowler should molest any 
of our precious belongings. 

While resting from the work of portaging, I examined 
the lower and upper ends of the canyon and took several 
pictures. The river contracts to a width of perhaps a 
hundred feet, and the water rushes through with racing 
speed. The canyon walls are of hard conglomerate and 
sandstone, and through this the stream has cut its nar- 
row gorge. The length of time required to cut the gorge 
through material of this sort cannot have been long, as 
time in geology goes, and, since this is the only point 
on the Finlay in a distance of almost two hundred miles 
in which the rocks have not been worn away below 
stream-level, it has been suggested that the channel is a 
comparatively recent one and that the ridge through 
which it makes its way owes its origin to a change of 
some sort during the glacial period. 

However this may be, the canyon forms a complete 
barrier to navigation up-stream, but it has been run by 
skilled men in big canoes on the downward trip. The 
passage is, however, hazardous and not to be undertaken 







. - 


./i 




' / 


# 






DESERTER'S CANYON 137 

lightly, as great boulders project from the bed of the 
stream, forming dangerous swells, eddies, and cross-cur- 
rents. 

A superb peak, which culminates in a pinnacle and 
bears patches of snow, towers more than a mile above 
the canyon on the eastern side and forms a landmark 
that, once seen and known, cannot be mistaken. Like 
hundreds of other mighty peaks in this great province, 
it is without a name. 

The basin at the foot of the rapids seemed promising 
for fish, and I tried casting there soon after our arrival, 
but managed to catch nothing at first except a two- 
pound sapi. This result was a bit discouraging, as I had 
looked forward to this place as one where I might be 
able to land some really big fish. 

Before supper Joe cleaned the arctics that I had 
caught earlier in the day, and threw the heads and other 
refuse in shallow water nor far from the canoe. When 
dusk was falling I happened to go down to the canoe 
after some article, when there was a sudden mighty 
splash, and a big fish went darting away from the refuse. 
Thinking he might return and being anxious to stock 
up our larder, I picked up the little .32 and stood watch- 
ing. Out of the depths of the basin a big black form 
swam slowly and began to feed on the fish heads and 
guts. I fired, and the fish turned over on his back, 
exposing a wide expanse of silvery belly, at which I made 
a hasty grab. But when I was almost in reach the fish 
managed to turn over on his side, gave a mighty flop, 
and slid off into deep water. 



138 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

Much chagrined, I took the rod again, and, casting 
with a big spoon baited with a piece of fish throat, soon 
had the satisfaction of hooking something the strength 
of which warned me that I must not be precipitate in 
making attempts to land. A royal battle ensued, last- 
ing several minutes, but at the end man and not fish 
triumphed. It proved to be a magnificent sapi, which 
measured two feet three and one-half inches long. As 
we had no scales with us I could only guess at the weight, 
and my guess is that he would have weighed from seven 
to nine pounds. 

As I had to hurry across the portage in order to pitch 
my tent while there was still light, I did not fish much 
longer. When I returned next morning and went to 
look at the fish, I found that it had been multiplied by 
two. 

"Why, Joe, how's this ?" I called to my helper, who 
was frying a sputtering pan of arctics. 

"Oh, the twin of your fish came out and joined him," 
said Joe. 

Encouraged by the sight, I once more tried casting, 
with the result that soon I had another big fellow securely 
hooked. The fight that followed was more lengthy than 
that of the preceding evening, and, even so, as Joe was 
pulling the fish out of the shallows the line broke, but 
the fish was badly exhausted, and by a quick grab Joe 
managed to save him. 

This fish proved to be half an inch longer than the 
two others, but he was at least two pounds heavier, and, 
what was really remarkable, he was the same fellow at 




Three Dolly Va: ^ ^.tt caught at Deserter's Canyon. 

Note woun J in back of middL- one. 




IS 



A bi'.ar's handiwdkk. 



DESERTER'S CANYON 139 

which I had fired the previous evening, for in his back 
there was a gash three or four inches long made by the 
bullet. In spite of this wound, which was big enough 
to be noticeable in the picture I took of the three, he 
had eaten so large a quantity of fish heads and guts that 
he was positively aldermanic in proportions, yet still 
had been hungry enough to grab my spoon and had put 
up a harder fight than had either of his uninjured com- 
rades. 

To me the incident was conclusive proof, if proof 
had been needed, of the extraordinary voracity of these 
Dolly Varden trout. 

By noon next day we had completed the portage, 
and had all our stuff, including the canoe, above the 
canyon. The labor involved had been hard, for I had 
done the greater part of the carrying, but the spot was 
so wildly charming and the fishing I had enjoyed was 
so exceptional, that I shall always regard the hours spent 
there as among the pleasantest in my life. 

I can still hear in fancy the hoarse roar of the wild 
waters as my fire died down and I sank to sleep in my 
little tent at the head of the canyon. 



CHAPTER X 
TO THE MOUTH OF THE QUADACHA 

Above Deserter's Canyon the Finlay Is very swift, 
and we found it necessary to track the canoe a long way 
up the river on the west side. After going some distance 
in this manner we came to a log-jam, against which the 
current set so ferociously that we dared not try to pass 
it, and consequently were forced to make a rather haz- 
ardous traverse through very rough water to the eastern 
shore. There was an immense gravel-bar on this side, 
with good pole bottom along it, and from thence there 
were no unusual difficulties. 

Two noteworthy landmarks were now in sight: be- 
hind us towered the high peak that stands sentinel over 
the canyon, while ahead the white mountain-mass that 
we had named "The Wart" was constantly drawing 
nearer. The mountain-wall on the east side of the river- 
valley was broken some miles ahead, and we assumed 
that through this gap the Ackie made its way. 

We hoped to be able to reach the mouth of the Ackie 

that afternoon, but the Finlay makes two immense 

bends to westward, just above the canyon, and it was 

not until noon next day that we did so. We found that 

this tributary empties by two branches through a wide 

gravel-bar, the largest of these branches being perhaps 

a hundred feet across and both of them very swift. A 

140 



TO THE MOUTH OF THE QUADACHA 141 

small bush-fire was burning a little distance up the north- 
ern branch, and at first we imagined that the lazily 
ascending smoke came from a camp of Siwash engaged 
in drying meat. Opposite the mouth of the Ackie lies 
"The Wart," of which we had been catching glimpses 
ever since leaving Fort Grahame. It is composed of 
white limestone and is a part of a range of low moun- 
tains, strikingly different in appearance from the other 
ranges in the neighborhood. According to McConnell, 
this range "probably lies along a line of faulting running 
with the valley." The valley of the Ackie is several 
miles wide and extends straight back into the mountains 
for perhaps a dozen miles, where it is said by the Indians 
to fork, the main branch coming down from the north. 
Beyond the fork we could see a range of mountains 
higher and more rugged than those that lie along the 
valley, and seemingly very barren. 

The Ackie has never been explored by any one who 
has left an authentic account of it, though there is a 
tradition that a couple of prospectors once ascended it 
for some distance. If they did so, theirs was a wild-goose 
chase, for the gravel in the bed of the river is largely 
limestone and does not contain a trace of gold. 

When planning the trip, I had contemplated the pos- 
sibility of entering the Rockies by way of the Ackie, 
and had tried hard to gather information regarding this 
stream and the region it drains, though without much 
success. Shorty Webber at the Forks had told us of 
an overland trip that he had once made to some of its 
southern headwaters; he had drawn a rough map of the 



142 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

country for us, but he confessed that he had not trav- 
elled far along the river, and his information was pretty- 
vague, though he insisted that we would "find moun- 
tains you will not climb." On this trip he shot both 
goats and caribou and became deathly sick from eating 
goat meat. 

Aleck had told us at Grahame that at the head of 
the river we would find "plenty goats, plenty sheep," 
also walls of ice "fifty feet high." He stated that the 
headwaters are "a hundred miles" from the mouth, but 
as the ideas of these Grahame Indians both as to dis- 
tances and numbers is very vague, we were inclined to 
discount his figures. Otherwise I imagine that his de- 
scription will be found to be true, and that goats, sheep, 
and glaciers will be found on the headwaters of this 
river. The river must head somewhere in the neigh- 
borhood of the "Great Snow Mountain" seen from the 
Laurier Pass country by the Vreeland party in 1912. 

I had hoped that Fox would be able to tell us some- 
thing definite about the region, but discovered that he 
could not do so. Like many another trader in charge of 
fur posts, he has been content to come and go along the 
beaten track and to venture very little out of it, and 
his knowledge of the Ackie was based almost wholly on 
what old Chief Pierre had told him about it. According 
to Pierre, it is a most wonderful country. In it there 
are spots where the water is boiling hot, and once, when 
travelling at night, he saw in the face of a mountain 
opposite a great, bright eye, fully a foot across, which 
stared down at him and made him afraid. 



TO THE MOUTH OF THE QUADACHA 143 

If I had felt certain that we could find this remark- 
able "eye"— which Joe and Fox thought might have 
been a diamond— I would certainly have ascended the 
valley of the Ackie, but I was a bit doubtful as to our 
ability to locate it, and, as we were making good prog- 
ress and still had a good part of the season before us, I 
decided while we were eating lunch on a gravel-bar at 
the mouth of the Ackie to pass this stream by and not 
to strike into the mountains until we had reached the 
mouth of the Quadacha. I reasoned that by so doing 
we would be able to enter the unexplored range almost 
at its centre, and it seemed probable that from some 
peak in that region we would be able to overlook the 
whole country from the region of Laurier Pass to that 
of the Liard River. 

The next few days were days of hard and grinding 
labor. There was much tracking and wading, and the 
journey was a constant criss-cross from one side of the 
river to the other in search of pole bottom, while we 
won past the long reaches and the big mountains with 
discouraging slowness. Each night when we made camp 
we were invariably both wet and weary. 

The river as far as Paul's Branch was as crooked 
as a coiled serpent, winding from one side of the val- 
ley to the other. We passed many high cut banks of 
gravel or clay. Some of these banks were honeycombed 
with the holes of bank-swallows, like the cliffs along the 
Parsnip, and on a few we saw great clusters of the hang- 
ing mud nests of the cliff-swallow {Petrochelidon lunifrons, 
Say). 



144 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

Above Deserter's Canyon for many miles we saw lit- 
tle game sign, and at no point from thence northward 
did we see many bear tracks. On the third day beyond 
the canyon, moose tracks became very plentiful, though 
most were several weeks old, the animals evidently 
being up among the mountains. Twice, also, I saw 
fresh goat tracks in the sand right at the edge of the 
river. The animals had evidently come down from a 
very rugged, barren range of mountains on the west 
side of the river. From observations in the course of 
this trip I am convinced that these odd animals range 
a great deal more through the woods at low altitudes 
than is generally supposed. 

Old Indian camps were very abundant, as were also 
cabalistic signs. In one place I found a blazed tree upon 
which some aboriginal artist had drawn a moose with 
his best skill, but whether he did this merely to exercise 
his artistic talent or as a message to friends, I am un- 
able to say. From the number of old camps that one 
meets along this river one might easily be led to con- 
clude that the Indian population is much larger than it 
is. Before making any deductions from such data one 
should bear in mind that in the Far North the evidences 
of such camps remain for many years, and that one 
family travelling up and down the river in a year makes 
a great many camps. If one cares for cleanliness, he 
will carefully shun all recent Indian camp-grounds. 

There are some tracts of level fertile land in this 
section of the valley, also some fair timber, though much 
of the valley has been burned over, some parts of it 



TO THE MOUTH OF THE QUADACHA 145 

recently, others two or three decades ago. We saw sev- 
eral small fires. All of them were travelling very slowly, 
and some of them had evidently been burning for a year 
or more. On one range of mountains on the east side 
of the valley a fire had recently run high on the moun- 
tainsides, and the brown patches that had been burned 
over contrasted strongly with the fresh green of the for- 
est that was still untouched. The Indians are supposed 
to have purposely set many of the fires in the hope of 
getting the country into grass. 

From various signs we were able to recognize one 
camp as having been that of a French Canadian named 
Hunter, who the year before had married a young Siwash 
widow named Annie. We saw the pair later on our way 
down the river, not far above the mouth of the Omineca. 
She is a husky, buxom young woman, not unattractive 
for a klooch, but she bore the reputation of being a 
great gadabout. The previous winter she and her 
twelve-year-old brother had made the trip from this 
camp to Grahame, fully eighty miles, on snow-shoes, in 
order to participate in the Christmas festivities at the 
fort. On their way back they ran into a blizzard and 
stopped for the night at Shorty Webber's cabin below 
the canyon. Shorty would not permit them to proceed 
in such weather unaccompanied, and next morning set 
out to break trail for them. As Annie represented that 
she had plenty of grub for all, he took no provisions 
with him, only to discover that she had nothing but corn- 
meal. Mush proved a thin diet on which to travel so 
far through deep snow in midwinter, and after threq 



146 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

days of strenuous going, when they were still several 
miles from Hunter's camp. Shorty found himself ex- 
hausted. 

"You have mushed me all this trip, Annie," he said 
to the kloochy "and I am worn out. Now you must 
mush [prospector for travel or move along] and break 
trail." 

She did so with energy, and at last they managed, 
half frozen, to drag themselves into camp and safety. 

I decapitated a "fool hen" at Hunter's deserted 
camp, but we saw no large game on this stretch of the 
river. Not far above the camp, at the top of a ridge 
on the east side of the river, we saw an Indian scaffold- 
ing, and I have no doubt that the Indians leave the 
river here to hunt for moose in the valleys to eastward. 
We tried fishing at the mouth of Paul's Branch but with- 
out success. This stream enters the Finlay from the 
east. It is about thirty feet wide and very swift, and it 
drains a long valley lying beyond the range that bounds 
the Finlay Valley on the east. 

For a dozen miles above Paul's Branch the Finlay 
follows an almost straight course on the east side of the 
valley, closely skirting the foot of a long mountain ridge. 
As we travelled northward the elevation increased on 
both sides, and the range on the west became one of the 
most forbidding we had yet seen. 

Late one afternoon we reached a point on the river 
where the west side of the stream was clearer than we 
had yet seen it, while near the eastern bank the water 
was almost milky white. For several miles this strange 




QU.\DACHA jrST ABO\E THE MOUTH. 




(,)l- AUA( HA \BO\IC THE F"ORKS. 



TO THE MOUTH OF THE QUADACHA 147 

contrast became more and more accentuated, and we 
knew that the goal we were seeking could not be far 
distant. A little before sunset we camped in an open 
grove of spruce on the west bank, in sight of the mouth 
of the Quadacha or Whitewater. This was the thir- 
teenth day since our leaving the Forks and the twenty- 
fourth from Prince George. It also happened to be my 
birthday. 

I went to sleep that night feeling well pleased over 
our progress. Thanks to good luck and Joe's skill as a 
river-man, we had completed our outward canoe journey 
in a shorter time than I had dared to hope. 

We had reached the edge of the Known. Before us 
lay the strenuous work of penetrating the mountains in 
"back of beyond." 



CHAPTER XI 
WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 

Take a gallon of water and pour into It a quart of 
milk, and you will have a fluid closely resembling the 
flood that the Quadacha in summer empties into the 
Finlay. Above the junction the Finlay is as clear as 
any stream I ever saw, but below, after the two streams 
commingle, one can see into it only a few inches. At 
the end of August the relative volume of water in the 
two rivers appeared to be about as two is to one. 

I had read or heard two theories propounded to ac- 
count for the color of the Quadacha. McConnell in- 
ferred from the appearance of the water and from infor- 
mation derived from the Indians that the stream's color 
is due to sediment from glaciers, and he states in a letter 
to me that he actually saw a glacier, or thinks he saw 
one, from the top of Prairie Mountain far to westward. 
Subsequently we, too, climbed Prairie Mountain and 
saw this glacier, but we already knew that it had very 
little, if anything, to do with making the Quadacha 
white. From a trapper or two Joe had heard that the 
color was caused by the stream washing against "white 
cut banks." The moment I examined the water I de- 
cided that this latter theory was most unlikely, but Joe, 

with a backwoodsman's usual prejudices against "sci- 

148 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 149 

entific fellows," persisted in declaring that undoubtedly 
the trappers were right. 

We thought it possible that we could work our way 
some distance up the Quadacha with the canoe, but 
before attempting it we made a short reconnaissance 
along its banks. We found the current very swift and 
noticed many sweepers and log-jams. 

"Well, what do you think of it ?" I said to Joe, after 
going half a mile or so. 

"We might make it," he said doubtfully, "but it 
would be hard work, and we'd be nearly sure to have a 
spill or bust the canoe on a sunken log. Why, you can't 
see an inch in this water !" 

"We'll not try it," I said decidedly. "We can't 
afford to lose the canoe and all our stuff away up here. 
We'll make a cache and strike out overland with pack- 
sacks." 

The selection of a place for the cache was a matter 
of no small importance. Not only were wild animals, 
such as bears, wolverenes, and pack-rats, to be feared; 
but we were a bit uneasy lest human beings might mo- 
lest our belongings. A year or so before a man of most 
unsavory reputation named "Society Red" had dis- 
appeared in the Finlay region, and though it was com- 
monly supposed that by this time he was probably dead 
of the syphilis with which he was infected, some one had 
robbed Indian caches the preceding spring. The same 
thief— whether "Society Red," a murderer who had fled 
into the region some years before, or some other person — 
might stumble upon our belongings and walk off with 



ISO ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

them. Or the Indians, exasperated by their losses and 
always inclined to look askance at white intruders, might 
take it into their heads to get even with Caucasians gener- 
ally by retaliating on us; Fox at Grahame had, in fact, 
suggested such a possibility by way of warning. To re- 
turn worn out and destitute of food to a rifled cache and 
to find the canoe stolen or destroyed was in that remote 
region not a prospect to look forward to with equa- 
nimity. 

In examining the Quadacha to ascertain whether or 
not it was navigable we had noticed a few hundred yards 
up a small wooded island, and I determined that there 
we would make our cache. I considered that the like- 
lihood of its being discovered there by human beings 
was exceedingly remote, while it would also be in less 
danger from wild animals. By making a portage round 
some bad water near the mouth, and by cutting out 
some dangerous logs, we managed in a comparatively 
short time to work the canoe up to the island. We 
made a landing on the side washed by the smaller chan- 
nel, and spent much of the remainder of the day caching 
our stuff. 

As we would be forced to carry our whole outfit for 
the trip upon our backs, we tried to make it as light as 
possible. We took my balloon-silk tent, weighing about 
four and a half pounds, a light blanket apiece, some big 
blanket-pins, and a piece of canvas about seven by eight 
feet. Perforce I carried my big rifle and camera, and 
Joe also had a little camera. There existed no real 
necessity for his taking his rifle, but he was obsessed 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 151 

with the idea that we might get into a mix-up with a 
grizzly and insisted on doing so. Of food we had a 
supply for about eight days, but carried along extra salt 
and tea, in the hope that we would be able to eke out 
what we had with game. The grub supply included 
two dozen bars of milk chocolate and a number of cans 
of dehydrated stuff of one sort and another. Our cook- 
ing outfit consisted of a small frying-pan and three 
empty tins of varying sizes. We made detachable wire 
bails, and, of course, the tins would nest. Each of us 
carried field-glasses and a compass. Also we took a 
hatchet. 

Joe had with him his old pack-sack, properly equipped, 
and I devoted a couple of hours to fastening to my dun- 
nage bag a tump-line and shoulder-straps, using some 
stout canvas and some leather straps I had brought for 
the purpose. The camera made my load pretty bulky 
and added weight that I wished could have been food, 
but, of course, the camera could not be left behind, as 
it was almost as essential as my rifle. 

As Joe was an old packer, we agreed that it was rea- 
sonable that he should take more weight than I did; for, 
though I was becoming reasonably hardened by this 
time, I had done little packing and knew that the un- 
usual character of the work would prove very trying 
and exhausting. Joe took about sixty pounds, includ- 
ing his rifle, and I about fifty; but, of course, he thought 
his pack far heavier than mine; this not by way of com- 
plaint, but merely to emphasize his transcendent abili- 
ties, upon which he was inclined to expatiate whenever 



152 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

opportunity offered. However, by the end of the trip 
I was carrying fully as big a load as was he. 

After a careful study of the lay of the country we 
decided that it would be better not to attempt to follow 
the valley of the Quadacha, as this would necessitate a 
long detour, but to climb the range lying immediately to 
the east of us. By so doing we would not only be able 
to make a short cut but could probably from the top lay 
out a good route into the country we wished to penetrate. 

A short walk through thick spruce brought us next 
morning to the mountain's base; thenceforward it was a 
continual climb up a tolerably steep slope. The day 
was clear and warm, and though we paused every few 
minutes to rest, we were soon soaking with perspiration. 
As I had expected, my pack distressed me greatly, but 
gradually we worked our way up through the spruce 
woods that mantled the base of the mountain, through a 
belt of jack-pine, and into the fragrant balsam that, in 
these mountains, usually occurs just below timber-line. 
An unfortunate feature of the climb was that the slope 
was destitute of water; our thirst soon grew very great, 
but we nibbled at our chocolate, ate a dry lunch and 
some high-bush cranberries, and finally, well-nigh ex- 
hausted, at about two o'clock in the afternoon reached 
the bare, rocky summit. 

Behind and far beneath us, a mere blue thread, 
flowed the Finlay, visible, in spite of the haze from bush- 
fires, for a great distance both up and down stream. 
Exactly at the junction with the Quadacha it bent al- 
most straight to westward, issuing from a narrow cleft 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 153 

in a range that bounds the great intermontane valley 
on the west. About three miles above the mouth of 
the Quadacha we could discern another and smaller 
stream, which we knew to be the Tochieca or Fox. The 
Fox takes the place of the Finlay in the great valley, and 
its sources are far to the northward in the region of Sif- 
ton Pass, beyond which the country is drained by the 
Liard. For several miles the Quadacha occupies the 
east side of the valley, skirting the high mountain ridge 
on which we stood, and then issues from a pass that 
leads northeastward toward the heart of the Rockies. 

Mountains lay all about us. Beyond the Finlay rose 
an endless sea of peaks and ranges, while to the west of 
the Fox there ran a bold ridge that appeared to be fairly 
continuous on top and which, comparatively low at the 
southern end where the Finlay broke through, gradually 
increased in elevation toward the northwest until it cul- 
minated in some exceedingly rugged peaks, bearing 
patches of perpetual snow. We were to become more 
intimately acquainted with this range later. 

To eastward a distinct disappointment greeted us. 
We had hoped that, once on the top of the range, we 
would find a plateau or at least a ridge connecting us 
with the mountains beyond, but this proved not to be 
the case. The mountain on which we stood formed part 
of a range running parallel to the Finlay from the region 
of Paul's Branch and ending at the point where the 
Quadacha issued from the mountains. It was separated 
from the higher mountains to the eastward by a wide, 
deep valley containing numerous small lakes. 



154 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

On our way up many red squirrels had ceased their 
labor of caching cones long enough to chatter excited 
protests against our invasion of their domain, while sev- 
eral squawking whiskey-jacks had fluttered hopefully 
about, but of game we had seen nothing, though there 
were signs here and there of grouse and many old tracks 
and droppings of moose. We had hoped to find on the 
summit tracks of either caribou or goats or, better still, 
the animals themselves, but we saw no signs of either. 
Furthermore, the mountains beyond the valley did not 
look promising, since their summits appeared to be either 
barren rock or else covered with a thick growth of 
scrubby bushes. Of grassy slopes, such as game loves 
to feed upon, there was a discouraging absence. Much 
of the country in the valleys and on the lower slopes 
appeared to have been swept years before by fire, and 
a dreary tangle of miles upon miles of fallen timber and 
thick bushes was visible. 

Our immediate necessity was water. The summer 
had been exceedingly dry, and as our mountain was not 
quite high enough to bear perpetual snow, its top was 
as dry as a bone. The labor of reaching the summit 
had been hard, and the fatigue resulting from the climb, 
joined with our raging thirst, made us weak and miser- 
able. 

In the hope of finding water we made our way for a 
considerable distance northeastward along the range, 
but had ultimately to descend nearly a thousand feet 
into a draw on the western side of the ridge. There we 
discovered a deliciously cold rill and camped for the 



I 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 155 

night in a grove of balsam, whose fragrant boughs made 
delightful beds. In places the draw was thickly covered 
with willows, through which deep moose trails meandered, 
but though I watched for some time around the head 
of the draw, I saw nothing. 

As it was certain that the night would be freezing 
cold, we made preparations accordingly, and as these 
preparations were typical of our procedure every night 
we were in the mountains, I shall describe them. While 
there was yet light we cut and dragged up plenty of 
logs, some of them green; at this and many subsequent 
camps there were some dead logs ready to hand, so that 
the task was not so strenuous as might appear. We 
pitched our little tent close to the camp-fire, and so placed 
it that the heat would enter the open front, which, of 
course, was always turned away from the wind. With 
big pins I had brought for the purpose we transformed 
our light blankets into sleeping-bags. Making ready to 
retire consisted of little more than pulling off our boots 
and putting on all our extra garments, including extra 
socks; for we rather dressed than undressed for bed. Our 
final task was to replenish the fire, and to this we gave 
our best skill, being careful as to how we laid the logs. 
As our feet were toward the fire, and the heat was re- 
flected downward by the tent roof, we were always quite 
comfortable so long as the fire was burning. As a rule, 
Joe smoked a final pipe in bed, and we would lie and 
talk about the incidents of the day, our plans for the 
morrow, or of our experiences in the past in various cor- 
ners of the world. As a rule, such talks did not last 



IS6 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

long, for sleep comes quickly to men who have toiled 
all day up and down mountains with packs on their 
backs. Hours would pass and the fire would burn low, 
while the chill air would strike through our thin blankets. 
It is impossible to sleep well when one is cold, and ulti- 
mately one or the other of us would become so uncom- 
fortable that he would rise and throw on more logs. On 
cold nights this process would be repeated several times. 
In the main, we were able to keep ourselves reasonably 
comfortable, in spite of our shortage of bedding. Such 
is the advantage of the open tent. Our tent was a 
small one for two men, but we managed to find room in 
it not only for ourselves but also for our rifles, cameras, 
and food. As a rule, Joe used the sack of flour for a 
pillow ! 

The morning after our first night on the mountains 
we climbed back through a splendid grove of balsam to 
the top of the range, and, travelling along the top, came 
presently to a point whence we could see a part of the 
upper Quadacha and some fine peaks toward its head- 
waters. Beyond the valley rose an immense mountain, 
many miles in length, whose lower slopes had been swept 
almost everywhere by old forest-fires, while the summit 
was a mass of barren rock. The slopes of this mountain 
and of the eastern side of the one on which we stood 
were thickly overgrown with willows and other bushes. 
In the valley itself a few small clumps of spruce sur- 
vived, and there was what appeared to be a tract of 
open meadow, at one end of which gleamed a tiny lakelet. 

We took off our packs and for some time stood gaz- 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 157 

ing down into the valley at a spectacle that was not pre- 
cisely beautiful, yet possessed a wild sort of charm. 
Although the distance to the lake seemed short, it could 
hardly have been less than two miles. The thought 
occurred to me that the place was well-nigh ideal for 
a moose to drink at and wade about in, and I began to 
scan the water near the shores. Almost immediately, 
in a little bay on the hither side, a tiny speck that seemed 
to be moving caught my attention. The distance was 
so great that the speck literally appeared no bigger than 
a fly, yet there was something about it that made me 
feel certain that it was a moose. I hesitated to an- 
nounce the fact, however, for on the previous day Joe 
had called my attention to an object in the Finlay far 
beneath us, and had declared most positively that it was 
a bull moose wading in the river, whereas an inspection 
through our glasses showed that it was nothing but a 
stationary log with projecting branches that we had 
mistaken for antlers. In the present case, therefore, I 
got out my glasses and took a long and careful look, 
after which I remarked casually: 

" Do you see the moose down in the lake ? " 
Of course Joe was sceptical, but after I had pointed 
the animal out to him — it was a long time before he 
saw it, for it looked infinitesimal to the naked eye — and 
he had inspected it through his glasses, he was obliged 
to admit that I was right. Even through our glasses 
the beast looked so small that we could not make out 
whether it was a bull or a cow. 

*'If it has a good head and I can get close, I shall 



158 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

try to shoot it," said I, "but it is ten to one that it will 
turn out to be a cow or a bull with small antlers, or else 
they will still be in velvet." 

It was improbable that the animal would remain 
much longer in the lake, for it was already ten o'clock. 
The slope directly beneath us was too steep in most 
places to descend, while in others it was so thickly cov- 
ered with brush and scrubby timber that we knew we 
would quickly lose sight of the moose if we attempted 
to make the descent. For a good while, therefore, we 
sat up on the summit of the mountain observing the 
animal's motions in the hope of determining where it 
meant to lay up for the day. It was well worth having 
come so far just to sit there and watch that big wild 
beast go about its affairs undisturbed and undismayed, 
and the picture is one that will always remain in mem- 
ory. The moose seemed to be in no particular hurry, 
but after wading aimlessly about for a long time, finally 
set off leisurely southward along the shore, sometimes 
on the beach, at others in the water. This was not good 
for us, for the animal was travelling right up-wind, which 
made it impracticable to waylay it and wait for it to 
pass. Two or three times we lost sight of it entirely 
behind banks or clumps of trees, but finally it emerged 
at one end of the lake and made its way through the 
marsh beyond, pausing now and then to browse on 
clumps of willows. As it was now nearing a clump of 
green timber, where it would be lost to view, we de- 
cided to begin the descent. Much of the way down 
lay through thickets of scrub willow and other low 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 159 

bushes, which greatly impeded our progress. At one 
place we came to an opening thickly covered with huckle- 
berry-bushes, bearing a great profusion of the largest 
berries of this sort I remember to have seen anywhere, 
and we stopped a bit here to rest and eat our fill. As 
these berries showed no signs of having been disturbed, 
we concluded that there were few bears in the region. 
When we finally reached the valley, we were in little 
better case than on top of the mountain, for not only 
could we not see the moose, but the seemingly beautiful 
''meadow" turned out to be a muskeg, overgrown in 
spots with low bushes, through which we could make 
our way about as quietly as a herd of cattle running 
through a brush pile. In short, the stalk was a complete 
failure. 

One fact was deeply Impressed upon us by that 
morning's walk, namely, that though we lost sight of 
this particular moose, the country appeared to be as 
thick with them as are fleas in Italy. The mountain- 
side and the valley were literally ploughed up with their 
tracks and trails. In the soft, marshy valley the trails 
crisscrossed hither and yon and in places were fully a 
foot deep and a couple of feet wide; in fact, I have never 
seen in the States a pasture so torn up by the feet of 
domestic cattle as were this valley and mountainside by 
moose. There were tracks of big moose and little moose 
and middle-sized moose, of moose with small feet, broad 
feet, and long, narrow feet. One set of tracks had evi- 
dently been made by "Old Splayfoot," for the cleft in 
the centre of each track was at least two inches wide. 



i6o ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

As a rule, a moose's hoof, unlike that of a caribou, does 
not spread much, and the cleft is narrow. 

We decided to spend the rest of the day in the valley 
and watch the lake for moose. I favored crossing the 
valley to the farther side and camping in a clump of 
spruce, where we would be out of sight of the mountain- 
sides around, but Joe made so many objections that 
ultimately I allowed him to pitch our camp beside the 
creek and right across the main moose trail that led up 
and down the valley. Here we had lunch, after which 
I made my way south up the valley a mile or more 
to a beaver pond that we had noticed on the way 
down the mountain. I watched this place until about 
three o'clock without seeing anything, but on my way 
back to camp I disturbed a moose that had been wading 
about in the creek, in the shelter of some willows. The 
animal made off at a run through the brush, springing 
with astonishing agility over fallen trees. It was not 
over a hundred yards away, and I could have taken a 
running shot at it, but I saw at once that it was a cow, 
so let her go unmolested. If I had had the same oppor- 
tunity a few days later, I fear she would not have got off 
so easily — British Columbia game-laws to the contrary, 
notwithstanding. 

After a short stay at camp I walked down the valley 
to the main lake, a mile away, and hid myself in a clump 
of spruce close to the nearer end. From the mountain- 
top this body of water had appeared no larger than a 
small pond, but I found it to be fully a mile long and 
probably five hundred yards wide at the widest place. 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE i6i 

For the most part it was shallow, but there were some 
big holes that were deep. Both then and later I tried 
to discover whether it contained fish of any sort, but I 
was never able to see any either in it or in the brook. 
As the outlet, which we saw later, tumbles down a thou- 
sand feet or more in the course of about a mile, I doubt 
whether fish have ever been able to make their way up 
it. The rotting poles of an old camp in a clump of 
spruce made it evident that the spot was known to the 
Indians, while the presence of bleached bones and of 
coarse hair showed that the aboriginal hunters had not 
watched in vain. From the axe marks on the camp- 
poles I judged that the place had not been visited for 
three or four years. 

Although I watched until the light was too poor for 
me to see the sights on my rifle, my vigilance was unre- 
warded. On my return to camp I found that Joe had 
been up the valley to beyond the beaver pond, and had 
found another lake. He had heard a moose making off 
through the brush but had not seen it. 

Next morning we made a very early start and watched 
beside the lower lake until after nine o'clock but saw 
nothing. Considering the abundance of "sign," this fail- 
ure may appear astonishing to some readers, but not to 
those who know moose. A hunter cannot pitch his tent 
across their main trail and build a fire that is visible for 
miles from the mountainsides and expect to kill many 
moose. Joe had several times admitted that he was "not 
a moose hunter," and I never disputed the assertion after 
seeing where he insisted on pitching our camp. During 



l62 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

a month or two in the fall a bull moose is a fool and is 
likely to disregard anything and everything, but the 
"running season" had not yet come. However, even if 
we had been as careful as possible, the result might have 
been the same. To a large extent moose are nocturnal 
animals, and as there were a hundred places where these 
could water, it was not surprising that we had not seen 
more of them. 

If we had really been anxious to kill a moose at this 
time, I would have remained in this valley until we got 
one, but the strong probability was that any bull we 
might see would have antlers still in velvet, while we 
were not yet far enough on our journey for the meat to 
be of much assistance to us. I determined, therefore, 
to move on and make a stop in the valley on the way 
back, thinking that by that time the antlers would prob- 
ably be clear and hard. In a tree at this lake we left a 
small cache consisting of a clean undershirt, in the arms 
of which we tied a few cupfuls of flour and rice, with a 
piece of canvas surrounding the whole. 

Joe favored ascending the immense barren mountain 
to the east of us and making our way over the summit, 
but my legs were still stiff and sore from the ascent of 
the range behind us, and believing that we would be 
compelled to descend on the other side, I was anxious, 
if possible, to go round the obstacle instead of over it. 
We were now not far from the point where the moun- 
tain broke away to give place for the valley of the Qua- 
dacha, and from what I had seen of the country from the 
top of the peak behind us, I believed that it would 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 163 

be possible for us to make our way round the shoulder 
of the mountain and thus to avoid the climb. 

None too graciously, for he felt that he was right, 
Joe assented to this plan, and shouldering our packs 
once more, we made our way along the lake through 
muskeg and impeded frequently by fallen trees to the 
farther end and then, turning off to the right, struck 
northeastward. Along the lake shore we noticed the 
track of a black bear, the only one we had seen for sev- 
eral days. For two or three miles the going was not 
bad, but ultimately, on the mountainside, we got into a 
patch of burned timber and began to experience trouble. 
It was this burn that had caused Joe to oppose our tak- 
ing this route, and he had quoted the old saying of the 
country: *' Where there is a burn and you cannot see the 
timber standing, it must be down." I, too, had seen 
the burn, but had hoped it would not be so bad but that 
we could make our way through it, and in view of the 
weakness of my legs, I preferred tackling it to climbing 
the mountain. For a couple of hours we persevered, 
but with each rod of progress the going grew worse, and 
it became painfully apparent that Joe's apprehensions 
were well founded. In all my experience with down 
timber, both in eastern and western Canada, I have 
never seen such a tangle as this was. The trees, in 
places spruce, in others jack-pine, had originally stood 
very thick. The fire had left the dead blasted trunks 
standing like skeletons; ultimately these had rotted at 
the butt and had been swept down by the wind in in- 
extricable confusion. The trunks formed a network so 



i64 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

deep that It was impossible in most places to walk other- 
wise than upon them, and we were rarely able to get 
our feet on the ground. 

To walk thus elevated in the air — often eight or ten 
feet — with heavy packs on our backs, over this tangle of 
fallen trees was not a pleasant task. Had all the trunks 
been sound, the danger of a fall would still have been 
great; it was much increased by the fact that many were 
rotten enough to break under our weight. We were as 
careful as we could be, yet several times each of us had 
slips that might easily have been serious. 

The possibility of a broken leg or even of a disabling 
sprain in that wild region, two days' journey from our 
canoe and cache, a hundred and fifty miles from the 
nearest point at which we could be certain of finding 
other human beings, and more than five hundred from 
a surgeon, was not to be contemplated lightly. At the 
best, an injury to either of us meant giving up the ob- 
jects of my long journey and devoting all our time and 
efforts to getting back to civilization and safety. Surely 
these forests have ways of avenging themselves on man 
for his setting the fires that lay them waste ! 

For a long time we kept fighting our way onward, 
hoping that we should reach the end of the tangle, but 
the farther we went the worse it got. Whenever we 
came to a particularly bad stretch I could hear Joe mut- 
tering to himself, and guessed that he was cussing me 
for getting us into such a mess. Finally, I said: 

"Joe, you certainly were right in thinking that we 
ought to avoid this. I would rather take all the dan- 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 165 

gers of hunting grizzlies for months than chmb over 
these infernal jack-pines for half a day. Let's try an- 
other route." 

"I think we shall have to go down/' said he. 

So we turned down toward the valley of the Qua- 
dacha. Getting out of the tangle proved no easy task, 
but, after lunching in a clump of green spruce beside the 
tumbling creek that gives outlet to the lake, we man- 
aged to make our way at last to fairly good going once 
more, and camped that night on the bank of the Qua- 
dacha at a point probably twenty miles above our cache. 

The course of the Quadacha from this point is roughly 
from northeast to southwest, and it is still the same 
muddy, racing stream. Opposite the camp there rose a 
range of fine large peaks whose upper slopes ran well 
above timber-line. Through my glasses I examined the 
summit of the nearest mountain long and carefully for 
game, but saw no trace of any; it was, in fact, the same 
old story of either rocky barrens or stunted bushes, with 
a complete absence of grass. Doubtless, moose fre- 
quented those mountainsides, possibly an occasional 
bear, but I think nothing else. 

The next day was one of grinding labor through 
thick spruce, brulee, willow, and alder thickets, across 
dead sloughs, through treacherous muskegs, over hills 
against which the river swept, forming cut banks around 
which we must climb. Ever since we had left the Fin- 
lay, Joe had grown glummer and glummer and made no 
secret of the fact that he did not enjoy this sort of work. 
No longer, as of old, did his voice ring out in mellifluous 



i66 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

strains in praise of "Molly Maclntyre" or "Molly Ma- 
lone." 

"This is one hell of a country!" he declared sullenly 
as we were resting after a particularly trying fight with 
a muskeg. "No chance to kill game here. If you do 
shoot a head, I won't help to carry it out. What you 
want to go into such country for.?" 

I once more explained my desire to penetrate into 
the mountains and to see the glacier that gave the Qua- 
dacha its color. 

"It's no glacier," he declared. "White cut banks. 
People in your country, do they talk a great deal about 
what makes the Quadacha white.?" 

"Not one in ten million ever heard of the Quadacha," 
I said, laughing at his perplexity. 

Some of the muskegs bore a thick carpet of soft 
sphagnum moss, and in one of them we found low-bush 
cranberries. In many places we met with a great pro- 
fusion of the shrub that goes by the name of "Labrador 
tea" — a shrub that figures in several accounts of arctic 
and subarctic exploration. We had seen much of this 
shrub before, but this was the first time we had noticed 
the low-bush cranberry. The high-bush cranberry had 
been a constant companion ever since we left Finlay 
Forks, and I had often picked and eaten its acid, red 
berries, a few of which are rather pleasant and refreshing. 

Toward noon, on an island in the river, I decapitated 
a young willow grouse, and this day we also saw a snow- 
shoe rabbit. The animal dashed quickly into a thicket, 
but I saw enough of him to ascertain that he was still 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 167 

wearing his summer coat. One of the astonishing things 
about this North Country is how few rabbits (varying 
hare is, of course, their proper name) one sees in sum- 
mer. In the woods along the Finlay and almost every- 
where we went we saw a profusion of their trails, cut- 
tings, and droppings, and in poplar thickets we noticed 
hundreds of saplings that have been girded in winter — 
often four or five feet up, showing the approximate depth 
of the snow — yet one actually sees very few of the ani- 
mals themselves. 

Our camp that night was again on the river-bank, 
and opposite us there still towered up some fine moun- 
tains. Ahead we beheld a particularly rugged peak of 
white limestone, a formation entirely different from 
those of the ranges nearer the Finlay. 

A large spruce-tree close to our camp-fire bore strik- 
ing evidence of having that spring received some rough 
attentions from a bear. The bark on one side of the 
butt and on an exposed root had been ripped loose, and 
the wood beneath bore the scratches of the powerful 
claws. The bear may have done this merely in playful 
mood or to smooth off his claws, as cats sometimes 
scratch boards or saplings, but I think he did it in order 
to start a flow of spruce sap, on which these animals 
sometimes feed. In the course of the trip we saw scores 
of other trees that had been so treated by bears, while it 
was not uncommon to see thickets of spruce and jack- 
pines in which dozens of saplings had been peeled by 
porcupines. 

On a slough just below this camp beavers had been 



1 68 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

active, as Indeed they had been In many places along the 
Quadacha. Most of these animals along this stream are 
*'bank beavers"; by which Is meant that they do not 
build dams but make their quarters In holes along the 
banks of the streams. Not twenty yards below our 
camp, right out on the bank, there was a pile of twigs, 
poles, and dirt that resembled a beaver hutch, and Its 
presence In such a place caused me to examine It. By 
tearing away the top of the structure, I reached, at about 
the level of the ground, a large cavity, which was con- 
nected with a hole that opened below water-level In the 
river-bank. I am unable to say certainly why the beaver 
had built such an unusual structure, but I suggest that 
possibly fear of high water had rendered it desirable 
for him to dig upward so far that he had made an open- 
ing that exposed him to danger from coyotes and other 
enemies; therefore, he proceeded to close It by piling up 
the structure that had attracted my attention. On the 
other hand, he may simply have miscalculated and dug 
too far up. At any rate, he had most effectually stopped 
up the hole. 

All observers of the beaver whose writings I have 
read unite In praising that animal's remarkable intelli- 
gence or highly developed instinct — as you will. The 
most exhaustive book I know about beaver is that by 
Morgan, who about sixty years ago made a careful study 
of the flat-tails on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan — a 
region in which I myself have watched the animals — 
and took some photographs of dams and hutches by the 
old "wet-plate" process. Morgan tells of beaver colo- 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 169 

nies that even built canals in order to be able to float 
to their houses supplies of wood and bark for winter use. 
That they actually did this and many other wonderful 
things I have not the slightest doubt, for the beaver is 
a very clever animal. 

The point I want to get at is this: the people who 
write and talk about the beaver are so enthusiastic in 
his praise that I recall only a few statements which 
would lead one to doubt that this animal is not all- 
wise and past master in the sphere of the activities 
he undertakes. Yet he is not so by any means, and 
within a hundred yards of our camp there on the 
Quadacha there existed two striking and conclusive 
concrete proofs of his limitations. 

Some of the poplars that the beavers had been cut- 
ting on the bank of the slough below us were large, a 
few being over a foot in diameter. Naturally the ani- 
mals desired that these trees should fall into the river, 
for if they did so the labor of transporting their limbs 
would be greatly diminished. Yet I noticed that the 
beavers had evidently had little notion which way the 
tree would fall and had gnawed blindly away, with the 
single object of getting it to the ground. In many in- 
stances the main cut had been made, not on the side 
next the slough but on that away from it, a state of 
affairs which, as every woodsman knows, would tend to 
make the tree fall away from the water, as some of the 
trees had actually done. 

Still closer to the camp I noticed an even more con- 
clusive demonstration of the beaver's limitations. Three 



I70 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

spruce, perhaps a foot in diameter, grew close together, 
and in the centre of the triangular space between them 
there had grown a small poplar, four or five inches in 
diameter, whose limbs were closely entwined with the 
limbs and trunks of the spruce-trees. A beaver — possi- 
bly more than one — had set to work on the poplar and 
had cut it completely off, but — and how surprised he 
must have been ! — the sapling had remained upright; in 
fact, it was so intertwined with the other trees that it 
could only have been released by cutting off some of its 
limbs. As the beaver could not climb up and do this, 
he had evidently been forced ultimately to give up the 
undertaking as a bad job, though a lot of unnecessary 
gnawing about the butt showed clearly that he had been 
reluctant to do so. . 

I do not say that all beaver would have been guilty 
of so foolish an undertaking as this, for there is doubtless 
individuality among beaver, just as there is among other 
animals and men. A great many people seem to fail to 
realize that animals have any individuality; even some 
naturalists are inclined to deal with the habits and na- 
ture of animals as if each and all of a given species are a 
fixed quantity, which, of course, is not true. I would 
not undertake to say that one amoeba will not under 
given circumstances behave exactly like another amoeba 
would have done, nor, so far as I know, has any one ever 
attempted to determine the line between higher and 
lower organisms at which individuality within a species 
begins; but it undoubtedly exists among dogs, horses, 
cattle, and among at least some kinds of birds. 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE lyT 

When I was a small boy I had a great number of 
pigeons, over a hundred in all. To most of those who 
visited my loft and looked over my pets the birds no 
doubt all looked alike, as did the ''coons" in the song, 
but I knew each bird, not only by its physical appear- 
ance but, in many cases, by differences in individuality. 
There, for example, was ''Black Pigeon," my oldest 
rooster, a splendid, sturdy bird, and always helpful to 
his mate, "Old Whitey," in taking turns sitting on the 
eggs and feeding the young birds, but he had a weak- 
ness: he would philander occasionally with a "high- 
flying" female, upon whom likewise the bonds of matri- 
mony sat lightly — a most unusual thing, by the way, 
among pigeons of this variety. Once when I happened 
to notice the guilty pair engaged in their illicit love- 
making, I took "Old Whitey" from her nest that she 
might behold what was going on while she was engaged 
in the homely task of warming her eggs. She sized up 
the situation in an instant, advanced upon the guilty 
pair in no uncertain manner, and with sundry pecks and 
flops scattered them and drove her mate home — I will 
not say for a curtain lecture ! Then there was "Cap- 
tain Rowdy," who always went growling and roaring 
around, yet who could never be brought actually to fight 
unless another bird tried to enter the "Captain's" box. 
Then there was the light-minded, lazy rooster who would 
sometimes neglect to relieve his mate in sitting on the 
^ggs, to her disgust and anger, as she did not hesitate 
to make him realize — but I have made my point and, 
besides, am getting far afield from the Quadacha River. 



172 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

As our supplies were beginning to run low, we were 
anxious to kill game of some sort, but the whole country 
was either a burn, overgrown with thick bush, or else it 
was covered with thick spruce timber, and the prospect 
of finding big game in such country was remote, nor did 
the mountain tops look at all promising. Toward eve- 
ning I watched a long bar on which there were a few 
old moose tracks; I did so with the consciousness that if 
I could sit there for a month I would be reasonably cer- 
tain to see a moose, but that I might also sit there for 
three weeks or more and get a shot at nothing. Joe 
undertook to watch for beaver nearer the camp, and 
just before nightfall I heard him shoot. As a good fat 
beaver would furnish us meat for several days, I felt 
quite hopeful as I stumbled back through the dark 
woods to camp, only to find that he had shot at the ani- 
mal swimming in the slough and had missed ! 

Indians had told McConnell that back in the moun- 
tains the Quadacha split into two branches, and on the 
strength of this information he had tentatively, using 
dotted lines, indicated such a fork on his map of the 
Finlay country. We had already travelled farther than 
the distance to the Forks as shown on the map, but, in 
climbing round a cut bank on the previous afternoon we 
had noticed far ahead mountain gaps of such a charac- 
ter that we felt confident that the Forks lay there. 

Joe was now thoroughly disgusted with the country 
we had entered, and for a couple of days he had been 
wanting to turn back to the Finlay. It was clear that 
unless we could kill game to eke out our supplies we 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 173 

would be compelled to turn back soon, but I was de- 
termined at least to reach the Forks — if Forks existed. 
Early on the morning of September 3 we set out once 
more through bush saturated by rain. About ten 
o'clock we came opposite an immense limestone cliff, 
rising perhaps a thousand feet above the river; here 
we left our packs and travelled on, carrying nothing 
except our rifles and my camera. The going was 
wretched, but about noon we at last reached the spot 
where we expected the Forks to be, and, sure enough, 
we found them. 

As the presence of the Forks bore out the authen- 
ticity of the information given by the Indians to Mc- 
Connell, I was considerably surprised by one feature 
that attracted our attention the moment we reached the 
spot. On McConnell's map there is a glacier set down 
on the North Fork, and I had naturally assumed that 
it would be the North Fork that would be white. In- 
stead, the North Fork showed clear water, while the 
East Fork was even whiter than is the main Quadacha 
at its mouth. Between the two streams rose a high 
mountain ridge that appeared to be continuous for a 
long distance eastward, making it apparent that the 
East Fork did not soon send an offshoot northward. 
Here, then, was an enigma the solution of which I 
could only guess at; my guesses were that either 
McConnell had located the glacier in the wrong place, 
or else that there were two glaciers. At that time I 
did not know — nor did I know until my return to the 
States — that McConnell had seen the glacier on the 



174 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

North Fork from the top of Prairie Mountain, beyond 
the mouth of Fox River. 

The two streams were so nearly equal in volume at 
that season of the year, that it is impossible to say defi- 
nitely which is the larger, though I was inclined to think 
the East Fork. At any rate, the East Fork was the 
white Fork, and I concluded that the name Whitewa- 
ter, or Quadacha, should attach to it. Both are good- 
sized streams, and neither is fordable. 

So far as I then knew, or have since been able to 
ascertain, we were the first white men who had ever 
reached the Forks, and, in accordance with an "explor- 
er's" prerogative, it seemed fitting that I should give 
the north branch a name. Now there are a number of 
persons who have attained prominence in the British 
Empire in recent years who have won my sincere ad- 
miration, and one of these was Reginald Warneford, the 
young Canadian lieutenant who, in 1915, caught a Ger- 
man Zeppelin returning from a murderous raid against 
women and children in England, and single-handed man- 
aged to drop upon that Zeppelin a bomb that sent it 
and its crew crashing to earth in the neighborhood of 
Ghent. The exploit was the more remarkable because 
the young officer had learned to fly only a few months 
before. The feat won for him the Victoria Cross, but 
soon after he lost his life through an accident. I wanted 
to name that stream Warneford River, and so I have 
set it down. 

The neighborhood of the Forks is rendered doubly 
interesting by a peculiar upheaval of white limestone 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 175 

running northwest by southeast. This upheaval is cut 
through by the Quadacha, but on the north side there 
rises the high cHff I have already mentioned. This chff 
is merely a foot-hill of a tall, rugged peak that culmi- 
nates in several pinnacles. To the eastward of this 
limestone upheaval the formation appears similar to 
that on the west side. 

I should very much have liked to follow up the East 
Fork, or Quadacha proper, but conditions were unfavor- 
able for such an undertaking. For one thing, my main 
motive in coming into the country had been to find some 
good hunting, and the prospect for doing so in the Qua- 
dacha region appeared to be remote, for the mountains 
we could see were most unpromising. Furthermore, as 
we had been unable to kill any big game, our food sup- 
ply was sufficient for only two or three days, or about 
enough to get us back to our cache on the lake. Joe 
had displayed small enthusiasm for this expedition since 
the beginning, and, though I was now carrying as much 
weight as did he, he was constantly complaining of the 
hard work, and it had been difficult to get him even as 
far as the Forks. He was more than ever positive that 
the color of the Quadacha was due to white "cut banks," 
scoffed at the idea of there being glaciers in the region, 
and repeatedly declared that even if we should succeed 
in killing a "head" in that country he would not help 
to carry it out. In short, his attitude was in discourag- 
ing contrast with the cheerfulness with which he had 
worked on the way up the river. Remembrance of his 
past splendid work inclined me to overlook his behavior 



176 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

now. The truth is that he was too far beyond "Joe 
Lavoie's Farthest North," and it was clear that how- 
ever good a man he might be on trips where luxurious 
beds and big square meals abounded, he was not cut out 
for exploring. 

If we had managed to kill game, I think his attitude 
would quickly have changed at the sight and taste of 
the good meat. But there was virtually nothing in the 
country except moose, and we had seen no place where 
it was worth while hunting them since we left the lake. 
With only two or three days of grub ahead, it was pre- 
carious to try the plan of "sit still" for moose along a 
river bar. For a couple of days we had hoped that a 
mountain that rose up just south of the Forks would 
prove to be a good place for either goats or caribou, but 
a careful study through our glasses of what appeared to 
be a promising draw showed that it was full of burned 
jack-pines and brush, while the summit looked too bar- 
ren to be worth hunting. 

Later, however, I regretted that we did not climb 
this mountain. Had we done so we would have beheld 
something twenty or thirty miles farther on that I would 
have reached if I had been compelled to travel alone 
and starve every foot of the way back ! 

After writing our names and the date of our visit on 
the smoothed trunk of a spruce, we, therefore, turned 
our backs on Quadacha Forks. So far as we knew, no 
other white men had ever visited the place before us. 
Nor did we feel that we would encourage any one to 
visit it again. 



WHAT MAKES THE QUADACHA WHITE 177 

I was reluctantly forced to the melancholy conclu- 
sion that I should never be able to answer the question, 
"What makes the Quadacha white?" 



CHAPTER XII 
THE GREAT GLACIER 

Before turning back from the Forks of the Quadacha 
I determined that we would ascend some peak that would 
give me a bird's-eye view of the whole country. It wat 
clear that the tall, barren mountain that lay to the east- 
ward of the lake in which we had seen the moose was 
well fitted for this purpose, and, moreover, it lay on the 
homeward way. I felt confident that if there were any 
striking features of the ranges, we would be able to sec 
them from its summit. 

Both our packs, and especially Joe's, were much lighter 

than when we set out on the Quadacha trip, and we 

were also able to avoid some of the muskegs, burnt, and 

other bad going that had delayed us on the way out. 

We travelled very late on the afternoon we turned back, 

and by nightfall were fully ten miles from the Forks. 

As I had been lucky enough to shoot a willow-grouse, 

we had a good supper and slept well. We made an 

early start next morning, for we realized that we must 

not only reach and climb Observation Peak, as I shall 

henceforth call the mountain we meant to climb, but it 

was extremely probable that we would find no water 

on the top, and would be forced to descend it also. We 

were on our way by seven o'clock, and by half past 

eight we had reached the base of the mountain. From 

that point there ran upward for many miles a rather 

178 



THE GREAT GLACIER 179 

steep, timbered slope, which was succeeded, about fifteen 
hundred feet below the summit, by a bare, steep pitch. 
A little way up we came to a rushing, tumbling brook 
that tore down through a rocky gorge. 

"Last chance for a drink," said Joe, "better fill up." 

And "fill up" we did. 

"Fm going to take a little with me," said I, taking 
out of my pack a small tin that had contained dehy- 
drated onions. "You had better do the same." 

But he thought otherwise, and we set out once more. 
We found the climb hard work, for the slope, which had 
appeared level from below, was badly broken. To 
avoid a draw that terminated In a terrific cllflf, we were 
forced to the left, and had to make the ascent of a lower 
shoulder, between which and the main peak lay a deep, 
narrow cleft. We descended Into this cleft, and there 
stopped for lunch. The cleft formed a sort of high pass 
between the Quadacha country and an elevated valley 
that drains southward into Paul's Branch. On both 
sides the slopes were thickly timbered with beautiful 
balsams, but the bottom of the pass, for a width of per- 
haps two rods, was completely free of either timber or 
bushes, and was overgrown with bunch-grass. 

If we had had plenty of water and had not been so 
weary, the spot would have been one of the most delight- 
ful ones we had yet seen. But the nearest water, except 
for the half-pint In my little can, was a thousand feet 
below us at the foot of a cliff, and I was so nearly ex- 
hausted that I seriously doubted whether I would be 
able to negotiate the two thousand feet of altitude that 



i8o ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

still remained between us and the summit. My ex- 
haustion was not due solely to that day's effort, but was 
the culmination of days of packing a heavy load over 
rough country. It was not that I lacked strength gen- 
erally, but that my legs were rebelling against climbing. 
On level ground I could still make good progress; 
strangely enough, on steep slopes where I was forced 
to use my hands as well as my legs it was not so bad; 
on any slope where I could step flat-footed I did fairly; 
but on a slope where I was compelled to walk on my toes 
the exhausted leg muscles that I must use in making 
my feet and toes rigid protested against their work. 

However, with my bit of water I made a small cup 
of very strong tea, and this seemed to put new life into 
me — even more than did the rest of the lunch. I sum- 
moned all my will-power into action, put my leg muscles 
under martial law, and swore I would get to the top. 
More quickly and with greater ease than I had dared 
to hope, I managed to bid adieu to the last balsam and 
pass timber-line, with its gnarled trees, stunted by bitter 
cold, and twisted by ten thousand storms. Thence- 
forward the ascent was very steep, up a slope composed 
mainly of slate, in places broken up Into scree by the 
action of freezing and thawing, in places remaining in 
rough cliffs. Several times we noticed some very good- 
looking quartz, though we gave scant heed to it. If a 
railway should ever run up the Finlay Valley, it may 
be worth some prospector's while to examine this moun- 
tain more carefully. 

Four times there towered above us what we thought 



THE GREAT GLACIER i8i 

was the top, and three times on reaching that "top" 
we found that it was only a bench, and that beyond it 
the mountain still rose upward. The fourth time, how- 
ever, we at last gained the summit, which proved to be 
rather a long narrow ridge than a peak. 

The view that burst upon our sight was well worth 
all the hard effort the climb had cost us. To northwest- 
ward lay the upper Finlay and its tributary the Fox, 
winding like silver ribbons along the great Intermontane 
Valley, and through the passes between rugged ranges; 
to southward we could even see the peak that stands 
guard over Deserter's Canyon. In every direction there 
unfolded a magnificent panorama of mountains, name- 
less ranges, hundreds of nameless peaks, taller than any 
in the whole Appalachian system. Even Joe, who 
hitherto had disliked this Quadacha trip, waxed en- 
thusiastic. 

*'I have never before seen anything to equal it," he 
declared. And he spoke from a knowledge of the moun- 
tain region of southern British Columbia and Washington. 

It was to eastward and northeastward that we turned 
our main attention. For we had attained a point of 
vantage whence we could overlook the whole of the 
unexplored region of the Rockies from Laurier Pass on 
the south, to the Liard River on the north. If the 
region possessed a great secret, to us it must now be 
unfolded. 

What did we see ? 

A glance showed us that there was no heaven-kissing 
peak "taller than Mount Robson." 



i82 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

There were, however, several magnificent mountains 
higher than any along the Finlay. Much the finest of 
all these lay far to the northeast. It was a vast affair, 
with three great summits, two of them peaks, the third 
and tallest an immense block. 

This mountain was big enough to have aroused our 
enthusiasm, yet we gave comparatively scant heed to it. 

For down the south slope of it, filling a great valley, 
miles wide and miles long, there flowed a perfectly im- 
mense, glistening glacier. 

*'That is what makes the Quadacha white," conceded 
Joe. 

There could be no doubt about it. I had realized 
ever since seeing the river that it would require a good- 
sized rock-mill to grind up enough silt to color such a 
large stream as the Quadacha, but here was a mill amply 
big enough for the job. 

We were forty or fifty miles from it, eighty at least 
as one would travel, yet it loomed up far and away the 
most notable phenomenon in that whole magnificent 
panorama. It is the biggest thing in the whole Finlay 
country. I venture to predict that when the glacier has 
been more closely examined it will be found to be one 
of the biggest, if not the very biggest, in the whole Rocky 
Mountain system. 

From our post on Observation Peak the great glacier 
lay io° east of north by compass, but since the compass 
in this region has a variation of 33° to eastward, the 
glacier really lay 43° east of north. 

The glacier is, I repeat for emphasis, a vast river of 



THE GREAT GLACIER 183 

ice, flowing down a great wide valley between two moun- 
tains. We were too far to make out much in detail, 
but, looking through our glasses, the ice appeared to be 
of great height, and the snow-field behind it of immense 
extent. Beyond question, the whole is an immense affair 
covering many square miles of territory. 

In addition to the great peak and the big glacier, we 
discerned several other features of interest. On the 
North Fork of the Quadacha, or Warneford River, there 
is at least one, perhaps two or three much smaller gla- 
ciers. The most notable of these lay 12° west of north by 
compass, which means about 21° east of the true north. 
Even this glacier would be considered notable in the 
Rockies of the United States, but it seemed a pygmy 
compared with the big one. About 30" south of the true 
east, and apparently on the extreme eastern side of 
the system, we could see a fine, snow-capped mountain, 
which I venture to guess is the "Great Snow Mountain" 
seen by Vreeland from the Laurier Pass country, and set 
down by him on his map. The mountains on the east- 
ern side of the system bore a great deal more snow than 
those on the western side, though they are, with two or 
three exceptions, not a great deal taller. The reason is 
of course, that they are partly cut off from the warm 
winds from the Pacific. These winds make the season 
in the Finlay country much later than it is at the same 
elevation in western Alberta even as far south as the 
headwaters of the Saskatchewan. In the latter region 
early in September, 1910, we were almost constantly in 
snow, even in the river-valleys, at an elevation of a little 



1 84 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

more than five thousand feet, while peaks seven or eight 
thousand feet high were all the time covered with 
snow. On the Quadacha, several hundred miles farther 
north, peaks seven or eight thousand feet high were not 
only often destitute of snow but also of water. It was 
only toward the last of our trip that such peaks were 
blanketed with a heavy snowfall. 

The ranges run parallel to the Finlay. First comes 
a range of moderate height, tall enough to reach well 
above timber-line, then a valley, then a higher range of 
the same general formation, then a second valley. Be- 
yond this valley lies a third range of entirely different 
nature, a narrow, extremely rugged range of whitish 
limestone, which seems to have been thrust right up 
through the system. This range is broken below Quada- 
cha Forks by the Quadacha River, but it reappears be- 
yond and runs north as far as the eye can follow it. 
To the southeast also it extends at least as far as we 
could see. The range is easily recognizable in both direc- 
tions because of its conspicuous color, and also because 
its peaks are much more jagged than those on either 
side of it. 

It was three o'clock when we reached the top, and 
the sky was overcast by broken clouds, though fortu- 
nately most of them hung high. I took several exposures 
of the most striking features of the panorama, and par- 
ticularly of the great glacier. But the conditions of 
light were unfavorable, and, in my anxiety to allow for 
the lateness of the hour and the clouded state of the sky, 
I ran to the other extreme and overexposed. When the 



THE GREAT GLACIER 185 

films were developed on my return home, the mountains 
appeared with fair distinctness, and also the valley of 
the winding Quadacha, but the glacier was hardly dis- 
cernible on the prints at all. Any one who has experi- 
enced the difficulty of securing good photographs of dis- 
tant snow peaks will readily understand the reason for 
my failure — particularly when I add that at no time was 
I able to take an exposure of the glacier when the sun 
was shining on all of It. If, because I am unable to 
present a good picture, any one Is Inclined to be sceptical, 
I merely paraphrase the words of a well-known personage 
concerning a certain "River of Doubt," and say that the 
"Glacier Is still there!" 

I venture to hope that some specialist In glaciers will 
be moved to undertake an expedition to examine the 
phenomenon more closely and In a scientific manner. I 
am confident that the results would well repay his ex- 
penditure of time and money. Even Joe, who had be- 
trayed not the slightest Interest hitherto In hunting 
glaciers, waxed so enthusiastic over It that he declared: 

"I would give a month's wages to reach It !" 

I hope some day again to undertake the long and 
toilsome river journey just for a chance to reach that 
magnificent river of Ice and ascertain its dimensions, for 
the desire to do so has grown upon me since my return. 
But I fear that some other man than I will stand first 
beneath that mighty wall of Ice; some other man's feet 
win first press the wide snow-field that feeds It. 

One right I claim — the right to name the mountain 
that rises beside the glacier. In doing so I wish to 



1 86 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

honor the ablest Briton of his time, one of the ablest of 
all times, the William Pitt of the mighty world conflict, 
a man equally able to solve momentous problems in 
peace and war. I wish it to be called Mount Lloyd 
George. 



CHAPTER XIII 
WE TRY THE FOX RIVER RANGE 

Before sunset we arrived at our little cache and the 
old Indian camp in a clump of spruce beside the lake. 
We had expected to remain in this valley for a couple of 
days in the hope of getting a bull moose, but as watching 
that evening and next morning proved unproductive, I 
set out to reconnoitre and discovered that there were no 
recent tracks anywhere in the vicinity. I thereupon de- 
cided to move farther up the valley, but neither on the 
way, at the beaver pond, nor at another lake beyond did 
I find any fresh tracks. In the shallow water of the up- 
per lake I saw the head and antlers of a bull that had 
probably been shot by Indians a year or two before. 
The antlers were in a good state of preservation, were 
exceedingly symmetrical, and had a spread of exactly 
four feet. From what I could learn this was a big head 
for the Finlay country; for some reason the Finlay moose 
do not grow big heads. It is possible that the moose 
had left the valley because of the changing season, but 
it is much more probable that we had scared them out 
on our way in. At least two had seen us, while our camp- 
fire, built as it was right across their trail, had been 
visible from the mountain sides for a long distance. 
Joe insisted that some of the tracks were fresh, but, 
great as are his merits as a canoeman, I had discovered 

X87 



1 88 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

that he is not infaUIble in hunting matters, and so dis- 
regarded his arguments, somewhat to his indignation. 
Though he has killed much game, he is what may be 
termed a "river hunter"; that is, one who travels up 
and down rivers shooting whatever game he may see. 
Such hunting calls for no special knowledge of animals 
or skill in finding them, and even a tyro who is much 
on the water in a game country is certain to slaughter 
a good many animals. 

By avoiding the higher summits and following a 
cleft in the range we saved ourselves much hard climb- 
ing, and, since we were travelling light, made rapid 
progress. As we were descending the slope on the Fin- 
lay side we scared up a covey of fool hens, which scat- 
tered and lit in the neighboring spruce. I was lucky 
enough to decapitate two with two bullets, while Joe 
fired four times at one, and finally shot it through the 
body. Hardly had the echoes died away when three 
answering reports came from far down in the Finlay 
Valley. 

"Siwash!" said Joe. "They think we are their 
people." 

As we had no desire to cultivate their acquaintance, 
we made no reply. Their presence made me a bit un- 
easy for the safety of our cache on the island in the 
Quadacha, but when we reached that place a little be- 
fore sunset, we found canoe and cache untouched, and 
breathed sighs of relief, for the possibility of being left 
without canoe or supplies in SQ remote a region was not 
to be regarded lightly. 



WE TRY THE FOX RIVER RANGE 189 

Next day we put our stuff once more aboard The 
Submarine^ and set out up the Finlay. We had gone 
only half a mile when we came to a deserted cabin stand- 
ing in a thick grove of spruce on the north bank. It had 
evidently been occupied some winters before by Booth, 
the squaw-man, for on a marten-stretcher he had written 
a message to the effect that grub was scarce, and that 
he was forced to go elsewhere to get a supply. There 
was a tiny sheet-iron stove in this cabin, and, as often 
happens, a pack-rat had pre-empted this stove for his 
domicile. He had dragged in a great quantity of weeds 
and heaped them over the stove, and had made a nest 
inside. When I began to poke round the stove the rat 
became panic-stricken and attempted to climb the in- 
side of the pipe. Twice he made considerable progress, 
as I could tell from the scratching, only to lose his foot- 
ing each time and take an inglorious tumble in a cloud 
of soot. These pack-rats are interesting creatures, and 
I shall have more to say of them later. 

Now and then we caught glorious glimpses of the 
mountain range lying to the west of the Fox River valley. 
This range terminated on the south at the pass through 
which the Finlay breaks its way from the west, and here 
it rises up very steep, at an angle of probably 45°. On 
the southern face and along the summit this range is 
practically destitute of either trees or bushes, and is 
covered with bunch grass, hence the name "Prairie 
Mountain," bestowed by McConnell upon the most 
southern elevation. From Prairie Mountain the range 
gradually rises in height toward the north, and culmi- 



190 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

nates in some tall and exceedingly rugged peaks. Both 
from our present point of vantage and from the moun- 
tains up the Quadacha the backbone of the ridge ap- 
peared to be fairly level and continuous, and it was 
Joe's theory that if we were once on this backbone, we 
could travel northward with great speed, and he was 
certain we would be sure to find caribou and other game 
there. 

Three or four miles above the Quadacha we came 
in sight of the mouth of the Tochieca or Fox River, and 
caught sight of the smoke and tents of a little Siwash 
encampment, just below the junction on the north bank 
of the Finlay. I was none too much pleased at finding 
the aborigines here, both on account of their ravages 
among the game, and also because I feared they might 
disturb our cache. But we put the best face possible 
on the matter, and ran our canoe upon the beach beneath 
the camp. Our approach had long since been noticed, 
and we were greeted by four bucks who came scrambling 
down the bank, while a couple of squaws, who had been 
graining a moose hide, peered furtively down at us from 
behind the bushes. 

One of the men was middle-aged, another a young 
fellow of perhaps twenty-four, while the other two were 
boys still in their teens. All wore civilized clothes 
except for moccasins. The older man did not speak 
English, but the other grown-up, who told us that 
he was a son of Chief Pierre and a brother of Aleck, 
spoke it pretty well, as did the younger of the boys. 
The old fellow was not particularly prepossessing, but 



WE TRY THE FOX RIVER RANGE 191 

the younger ones were both good-looking and intelligent. 
They had been in the region for months, and were about 
out of supplies. 

"Gun empty," said Pierre's son, "no tea, no tobac. 
Hell without tobac !" 

He wanted to know if we would not trade them a 
supply of these articles for some dried moose meat, of 
which they had a goodly quantity. First, however, he 
was anxious to learn how every one was at Fort Gra- 
hame, what his father and Aleck were doing, and so on. 
I confess that his concern about the health and well- 
being of his friends and relatives prepossessed me in his 
favor. We told what little we knew on these subjects, 
and then gave the Indians a few .30-30 cartridges and 
a little tea and tobacco, taking in exchange a small piece 
of dried meat. 

Before the exchange was effected I asked the party 
to line up in front of the camp and let me take their 
pictures. The men did so willingly enough, but the 
two squaws replied to the proposal, as transmitted 
through their male relatives, with protesting jabbers, and 
hid in the tents, much to the amusement of the men. 
One of the women was young and comely, the other a 
very aged hag, whose wrinkled, leathery skin made her 
look ninety at least, though she may not have been 
above sixty or seventy. From the tone of her voice, 
which was frequently lifted in orders or protests, we 
judged that she made it pretty lively for the other 
members of the party. The dogs, too, objected to pic- 
ture-taking, and hung back, growling. When I opened 



192 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

the Graflex, the biggest, a great surly, ugly brute, gave 
a yelp of fear and dived off into the brush. 

Later, while Joe was getting the tea and tobacco 
out of the boat, the ancient dame so far forgot her fears 
that she came down close to the boat and jabbered away 
at a great rate, probably telling the men what they 
should ask for. I took advantage of the opportunity to 
train the camera on her, whereupon the men, entering 
into the spirit of the thing, began to laugh. She quickly 
perceived what I was about and started to turn away, 
but she was too late. The men thought the thing a 
great joke, and they chuckled for some time over it. 

Subsequently at Fort Grahame I learned from Fox 
that this old squaw has a remarkable history. Many 
years before her husband had died and had left her with 
several small children. But she was a rustler, hunted 
game, and even trapped bears. "There was not a family 
in the tribe that was better provided for than hers,'* 
said Fox. This account greatly raised the old lady in 
my estimation. What a life she must have led in the 
wilderness, and what a story her experiences would make 
if one could only know them ! Cold, hunger, privations, 
adventures with wild animals, struggles to find the where- 
withal to feed hungry mouths and clothe naked backs 
would all find a place therein. How interesting would 
be the single matter of her view of the white man and 
the experiences of herself and people with the members 
of that race. 

I confess that this little hunting-party — or family- 
party, as you will — impressed me most favorably. There 



WE TRY THE FOX RIVER RANGE 193 

was something of the old, self-reliant pose of the primi- 
tive red man in the men, and there was pride in the 
tone of Pierre's son when he indicated with a wave of 
his hand the mountains and valleys around us, and said: 
"This is my country." All the party were physically 
good specimens, for they had never had much experience 
with fire-water and the white man's diseases. Their 
bearing was utterly different from that of Indians one 
meets close to "civilization." It was evident that they 
still regarded themselves as lords of the land, and us as 
friendly travellers therein. 

Soon after leaving this interesting camp we reached 
the mouth of Fox River, and had great difficulty in pass- 
ing it, as the stream dashes into the Finlay with great 
violence, and creates a dangerous eddy near the opposite 
bank. The Fox follows the west side of the Great 
Intermontane Valley, and contains so many rapids and 
low falls that it is not considered navigable. McCon- 
nell's party made their way on foot some distance up 
the river, and since then a number of white men have 
penetrated the region. Among these were Frank and 
Alfred Perry, one of whom is, I understand, a relative of 
Fox at Fort Grahame. Somewhere up the stream they 
were charged by two grizzlies, and Frank Perry killed 
the last one only a few feet from the muzzle of his rifle. 

In answer to our questions, Pierre's son had said that 
the southern end of the Fox River range was not good 
for game, and had advised us to go up to the Long Canyon 
and hunt in the mountains around the head of a stream 
called Bower Creek. The mountains there were, he de- 



194 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

clared, "white with sheep, black with caribou." His 
account rather shook my faith in the Fox River range, 
but Joe declared that the Indian was probably lying, 
so we stuck to our plan, landed at the foot of Prairie 
Mountain, and made a cache on a spot that had been 
occupied some weeks before by the Huston party, whose 
names were written on a blazed tree. We planned that 
if the range did prove disappointing, we would turn 
northwestward and try to reach the region in which the 
Huston party had found caribou. It was this region 
that Witt had recommended to me at Prince George. 

Next morning, taking as much food as we could carry 
and each of us his heaviest blanket, we started up 
Prairie Mountain. We were unlucky enough to blunder 
among some steep cliffs, and not only had to work hard 
but, encumbered as we were with heavy packs, we 
encountered no small amount of danger. Once I 
thought that Joe would surely fall, and as I was directly 
beneath him, my own prospects looked none too bright, 
but he managed to regain his footing, and presently we 
reached better going. 

By noon we had reached the summit, and again had 
a splendid view of the Intermontane Valley, the Finlay 
and its tributaries, and mountains in every direction. 
We gazed with special interest at the Quadacha country, 
and were able to see many of the natural features of 
that region, including the glacier on the headwaters of 
Warneford River. It is this glacier evidently that 
McConnell sets down on his map, as he writes me that 
he saw it from the top of this mountain. Later we 



WE TRY THE FOX RIVER RANGE 195 

caught a distant glimpse of Mount Lloyd George and the 
Great Glacier from much farther up the range. 

As it threatened rain and Joe was worn out, we 
camped early that afternoon in a wooded ravine a few 
miles up the range. There was plenty of water and 
splendid balsam boughs for beds, and we were able to 
make ourselves quite comfortable. 

We had hoped to find caribou sign, or better still 
the animals themselves, on top of Prairie Mountain, 
but found nothing except a few old moose tracks and 
droppings. The moose, though a denizen of the lower 
levels, occasionally strolls up to timber-line, and even 
passes beyond when travelling. 

I spent what remained of the afternoon prowling along 
the top of the range ahead. It was delightful country: 
the summit bare of trees, and except where too rocky, 
overgrown with bunch-grass, with scattered spruce, aspen, 
jack-pine, balsam, juniper, and kinnikinnic in some of 
the hollows and ravines. With such splendid feed on 
this sky pasture, it seemed that there ought to be game 
to eat it, but I saw only a pair of big blue grouse, at the 
head of one of which I fired but missed. Doubtless the 
place is in too easy reach of the Indians who hunt the 
Fox River valley. In this valley and in that of the Fin- 
lay to westward I could see many lakelets, and around 
these the Siwash no doubt kill plenty of moose. 

I repeat that it was a most delightful country, and 
despite a drizzling rain that fell at intervals, I vastly 
enjoyed that afternoon's walk up there on the roof of 
things. After so many weeks spent in a region of for- 



196 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

ests, it gave one a sense of relief to be once more walking 
in the open over grass. There was plenty of scenery to 
look at, and if I grew weary of gazing at the Fox River 
valley and the Quadacha country, I had only to walk 
two or three hundred yards to look down into the Fin- 
lay Valley to westward and at the forbidding ranges 
that loom up beyond, while there was always the chance 
that I might come in sight of caribou, or even a silver- 
tip. 

Among the most soul-satisfying hours that I have 
ever spent have been those passed among high moun- 
tains, rambling about timber-line and summit, alone 
with primordial facts and eternal verities. 



CHAPTER XIV 

AN EXPERIENCE WITH MOUNTAIN-GOATS 

My natural pride as a hunter would lead me to sup- 
press this chapter, but as this book purports to be a 
veracious chronicle of our experiences on the head- 
waters of Peace River, I swallow my pride and will not 
attempt to misrepresent anything even by exercising 
the nice art of suppression. 

It snowed considerably the night following our arrival 
on the summit of the Fox River range, and though the 
sun next day soon melted the snow on the lower slopes, 
a thin white mantle still clung around the higher sum- 
mits. A fierce, raw wind from the west cut us to the 
marrow as we trudged along northward, alternately 
ascending and descending, and so strong did it become 
that when we came to some knife-edges we felt in danger 
of being picked up and hurled into the deep gorges be- 
low. The farther we went the higher grew our altitude, 
and toward noon, as it was evident that we were getting 
away from all fuel, we tore off a few gnarled sticks from 
some half-dead stunted spruce with which, when we 
reached the summit of the peak ahead, we made a 
wretched fire, melted some snow, and brewed some tea. 
The backbone was proving much more uneven than it 

had appeared from the Quadacha country, and we dis- 

197 



198 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

covered that high lateral ridges running northeastward 
had hidden deep clefts, the passage of which took much 
time and effort. Although we kept a sharp lookout, we 
saw no game of any kind, but we did happen upon a 
few very old goat and caribou tracks, and a place where 
months before a grizzly had "done his assessment work," 
as Joe put it. By this last I mean a hole where a grizzly 
had ripped out a wagon-load of earth and stones trying 
to dig out a whistler. 

In the afternoon we came to a spot where there 
loomed up ahead the most forbidding rocky peak we had 
yet seen along this range, while to the right there lay a 
deep wide basin, at the head of which lay a big patch 
of old snow. We descended into the basin to camp, and 
found its floor covered with grass, while a clear, cold 
stream trickled down from the patch of snow. We no- 
ticed some old bear and caribou signs, but the only ten- 
ants of the basin seemed to be some siffleurs, one of 
which persisted in uttering his piercing whistle at short 
intervals. 

When we reached timber-line at a spot a little above 
where the basin met another extending into the range 
farther north, we camped — not a very satisfactory loca- 
tion, for the wind blew chill from seemingly every direc- 
tion, dry wood was hard to get, and the little brook had 
disappeared beneath vast masses of slide rock, necessi- 
tating a long trip back toward the head of the basin 
after the all-essential fluid. By about sunset, however, 
we had finished our suppers, and I set off with our two 
biggest tin pots for a fresh supply of water with which 



EXPERIENCE WITH MOUNTAIN-GOATS 199 

to wash the dishes and make a bannock. I took my 
rifle with me, and, as a dimb of two or three hundred 
feet would enable me to look over into the basin to north 
of us, I summoned up enough energy to make it, hoping 
that I might see game of some sort or at least find water 
near at hand. 

To ascend the spur that separated the mouths of 
the two basins was a matter of a few minutes only, and, 
arrived at the top, I looked cautiously over. I saw at 
once that the basin was not unlike the one into which 
we had descended, though at the head it was walled in 
by a tremendous unscalable cliff. I also perceived that 
if we had continued on the backbone, we would easily 
have been able to avoid both basins, as neither was a 
pass, as Joe had contended. On the side nearest me 
and close at hand lay a beautiful little tarn, or lakelet, 
at which I could fill my pails. At the head of the basin 
there was a considerable patch of old snow. 

These various features received, however, little more 
than a passing glance, for my eyes almost immediately 
caught sight of an object moving on a green plot close 
beside the snow. I quickly hauled forth my glasses and 
focussed them on this object. Up to that moment I 
had never yet beheld a living Rocky Mountain goat, 
but there could be no mistaking the long, fluffy, white 
wool, the square blocky outlines, the stiff jointless gait 
of the beast before me. 

The sight exhilarated me strangely. It was one of 
the moments for which men will travel thousands of 
miles and undergo all sorts of hardships to experience. 



200 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

The mere sight of that wild animal grazing in his native 
haunt beneath those rugged cliffs was a great recom- 
pense. 

Best of all, the prospect seemed bright for me to bag 
him. To be sure, the sun was setting and the basin 
was already in deep shadow, but I knew there would be 
shooting light for half an hour — just time enough to 
sneak past the lakelet over the low knoll that rose in 
the centre of the basin and put a .401 bullet into that 
white hide where it would do the most good. The 
chance seemed so excellent that I felt thoroughly con- 
fident that luck had turned, and I pictured to myself 
the pleasure I would enjoy an hour later strolling into 
camp and nonchalantly laying down a goat head and a 
quarter of fresh meat. 

Hurriedly picking out what seemed the best route, I 
quietly stole down into the basin past the tarn; there I 
left the two pots, and then crept along the side of the 
low knoll toward my quarry. There were little clumps 
of dwarf balsam and juniper that aided me greatly, and 
I felt that all was going well until, on looking round a 
clump of juniper, I discovered that the billy had quitted 
the low ground near the patch of snow and was making 
his way up the ridge that bounded the basin on the 
north. His pace was leisurely; he stopped now and 
then to crop a particularly enticing titbit; it was plainly 
apparent that he had no knowledge of my presence, and 
had merely been moved at that unlucky moment to 
climb the ridge. Away went my confident belief that 
billy was as good as mine, for to stalk him now would 



EXPERIENCE WITH MOUNTAIN-GOATS 201 

necessitate a detour of miles, and the light was already 

failing fast. 

Plainly it was a matter of letting him go undisturbed 
or of taking a long-range shot. The former would have 
been the better hunting, but my long run of poor luck 
had rendered me impatient, while I could feel no cer- 
tainty that I should be able to find him again on the 
morrow, and, besides, I have ever dearly loved making 
long shots. He was at least five hundred yards away, 
but how much farther I did not know, nor do I know now. 
I took a look at him through the sights, found that I 
could get reasonably good aim, ran the rear sight up to 
five hundred yards, aimed deliberately, and let drive. 
At the shot billy bounced up in the air, came down stiff- 
legged, and started up the ridge with discouraging 
agility. After travelling forty or fifty yards, however, 
his curiosity overcame his fear and he stopped, where- 
upon again I pulled the trigger, only to have the process 
repeated. I forget now just how many times I fired at 
him— it was either three or four— then I saw that it 
was useless, and stopped shooting. Clearly I had mis- 
judged the range. 

Billy hardly knew what to make of it all, for he kept 
stopping and looking back in a puzzled manner, and when 
he reached the top of the ridge a thousand feet above 
the basin floor, he stalked back and forth, evidently 
bursting with curiosity as to what had been making 
that infernal racket. Soon he was joined by two other 
goats, a nanny and a kid, and they, too, gazed inquir- 
ingly down into the basin. The kid particularly seemed 



202 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

to have imbibed some of paterfamilias's curiosity, for it 
kept hopping up on a big block of stone as if to get a 
better view. But as I was careful to keep behind the 
juniper, they saw nothing, and I have no doubt, went 
to bed that night still mystified about "that noise." 

I remained hidden until it was so dark in the basin 
that I knew they could not see me, and then set out for 
camp. So long as I remained I could still see those 
precious goats silhouetted against the fading pink sky, 
still fussing around and evidently much exercised about 
the matter. 

When I got back to camp I had two pails of water 
but no goat head, and, worst of all, had to explain to 
Joe how it was that I had fired so many shots without 
killing any game. Of course, he criticised the perform- 
ance, insisting that if I had refrained from shooting we 
would have been able to find the goats in the morning, 
whereas now they would leave for parts unknown. 

When we set out next morning and reached a point 
whence we could overlook the basin, sure enough there 
were no goats in sight. We crossed the mouth of the 
basin and began to ascend the ridge beyond. As it was 
a stifi^, hard climb, we paused several times, and when 
we were half-way up, I suddenly saw all three goats in 
a hollow close to the patch of snow, and not a hundred 
yards from the point where I had first seen the billy 
the evening before. We were a long way oflf, and, as the 
animals were grazing peacefully, it was quite evident 
that they had not seen us. Once more the prospect 
seemed propitious. We had the whole day before us, 



EXPERIENCE WITH MOUNTAIN-GOATS 203 

the wind was favorable, and it looked as if all I would 
have to do would be to sneak back down the ridge, 
crawl up on the unsuspecting animals, and fire. 

I made the bottom of the ridge unperceived, and was 
creeping along the slope of the knoll rising from the 
basin floor when, looking back at Joe on the mountain- 
side, I saw him make a signal we had agreed upon that 
meant the animals were moving to the left. 

"Ha!" thought I to myself, "they are going to the 
tarn for water ! I can crawl up to the edge of the bluff 
overlooking it and have a certain shot at forty yards." 

Accordingly I crept off in that direction, and finally 
reached a point whence I could command a view of the 
whole head of the basin. Imagine my disgust when I 
discovered that, instead of travelling toward the tarn, 
the goats were grazing upward on a green grassy slope, 
and were nearing the rough cliff above. I could go no 
farther without being perceived, yet I was still at least 
four hundred yards away, and I did not like to risk any 
more long shots, with the distance uncertain. There- 
fore, I lay there helplessly and watched the animals 
slowly mount the cliff. Through my glasses I could 
see that the billy had a good pair of needle-sharp horns, 
and that his coat was much whiter than those of the 
nanny and kid, both of which had probably been rolling 
in the dirt. The whiteness of a clean mountain-goat, I 
pause to remark here, is astonishing; as pronounced as 
anything I can think of in nature. Under other circum- 
stances to have watched the skill and ease with which 
those seemingly awkward animals walked up that al- 



204 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

most sheer cliff would have been exceedingly interesting, 
but I confess that at that moment the sight gave me no 
pleasure. I had left my cap and sweater behind me, 
in order to make the stalk unencumbered, and half an 
hour of lying on the frozen ground with a bitter wind 
blowing through my closely cropped hair made me 
heartily wish I had elected to wear them. The animals 
had, however, reached such a position that I could not 
back out without being noticed, nor could I go forward 
without the same result. From the speed with which 
the goats were going it was evident that they were not 
in a hurry, and might spend several hours on the cliff. 
Anything I could do would have its drawbacks, so 
finally in desperation I simply rose to my feet and 
walked toward the foot of the cliff, thinking that I would 
at least have the satisfaction of seeing what the animals 
would do when they perceived me. 

They accepted the sudden apparition more calmly 
than I expected. In fact, I had walked a hundred yards 
or so toward them before they seemed to decide that 
any action was demanded on their part. The nanny 
was the first to decide that the neighborhood was becom- 
ing unhealthy. She led the way diagonally up the cliff, 
with the kid following, and billy leisurely protecting the 
rear. 

The animals were so distant that I hardly expected 
to fire at them, but the billy presently stopped on a ledge 
broadside on, and, though the sun was shining in my 
eyes, I could not resist the temptation to take a chance. 
At the moment he was probably a thousand feet up the 



EXPERIENCE WITH MOUNTAIN-GOATS 205 

cliff, and he certainly was four or five hundred yards 
away in a direct line. Had I been able to measure the 
exact distance, I would not have known how to set the 
sights for that kind of shot. As it was, I fired at least 
five cartridges at him, a couple at him standing, the 
rest as he climbed the cliff. All went wild, though how 
wild I could not tell, for the bullets flattened on the 
cliff and gave no indication of where they were striking. 
Seeing that I was merely wasting ammunition, of which 
my supply was scanty, I ceased shooting and watched 
the procession. The nanny and kid hurriedly made 
their way to the summit and disappeared. The billy, 
however, climbed up to a perfectly inaccessible ledge, 
took his stand there, and gazed truculently down in my 
direction, as if to say: 

"I dare you up here!" 

If it had not been that I had read a good deal about 
the character of mountain-goats, I would have felt con- 
fident that I had wounded this animal. As it was, I 
concluded that he was merely too lazy to go higher 
and, feeling himself safe, decided to stay put where he 
was. 

For me to climb the cliff was utterly impossible. To 
have reached the summit would have required hours of 
hard labor, and would have been useless, for the goat 
would not have been visible from the summit. Neither 
was he visible from the foot of the cliff; he could only 
be seen from a long distance back from it. For a bit I 
thought of making a detour back into the basin south 
of us and trying to make an approach from the side, but 



2o6 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

after walking back to the tarn I obtained a view that 
convinced me that at best I could obtain only a long- 
range shot, while, of course, I could not be sure that he 
would be obliging enough to remain on the ledge while 
I was making the detour. 

The truth was that the only feasible way of killing 
him that day would have been to get as close as possible 
on the floor of the basin, and to have kept shooting till 
he dropped. As one could not tell where the bullets 
were striking, this course would have necessitated an 
unlimited supply of cartridges, and I had no more to 
spare on uncertainties. Even if one had been lucky 
enough to kill him, his body would probably have lodged 
on the cliff, while had he fallen all that frightful distance, 
it was ten to one that his horns would have been broken. 

If we had remained a few days in the region, I think 
it likely that we would ultimately have managed to out- 
wit the animals, but I was in a hurry to get to the 
caribou and sheep country, and decided that the better 
plan would be to move on and trust to another interview 
with billy on our way back. Furthermore, we were both 
confident that, now we had reached the goat country, 
we would see many more — in fact, this feeling had been 
a strong factor in determining my course both times 
I had seen the animals. Therefore, we climbed out of 
the basin with our packs and travelled on up the range. 
At the top of the ridge we found goat beds, and it was 
evident that the spot was one of their main places of re- 
sort. 

As long as we remained in sight billy continued 



EXPERIENCE WITH MOUNTAIN-GOATS 207 

valiantly to hold his position on the cliff, while the wind 
blew through his whiskers. 

I confess that I took my leave feeling very humble 
and disgusted: disgusted because it had been my ill 
luck to have the billy twice move by idle impulse from 
spots where I would soon have had him at my mercy; 
humble, because I had not managed better, guessed dis- 
tances better, shot better. But such is hunting — I sup- 
pose that is why it is so fascinating. 

As I have already said, we left fully expecting to re- 
turn that way and have another trial. As it happened, 
we returned by another route. For aught I know, billy 
is still standing there upon the cliff where we left him. 
Wherever he is, may his tribe increase ! 



CHAPTER XV 

WE TURN DOWN TO THE LONG CANYON 

The hope that we had at last reached a good game 
country was destined to disillusionment. All that day 
we made our way northwestward along the range with- 
out seeing either goats or other big game, and few traces 
of any. More discouraging still, we had reached a region 
in which the going was all up-and-down work. Hardly 
would we surmount one summit ere we would come to 
a deep cleft, often many hundreds of feet deep, which 
we must pass before we could make further progress. 
The range that had promised from the Quadacha country 
to be smooth and level like the top of a sweet-potato 
ridge, proved on closer acquaintance to be more like the 
cutting edge of a cross-cut saw. By camping time we 
were thoroughly discouraged, especially since the coun- 
try ahead looked more difficult and forbidding than any 
we had yet traversed. Progress henceforth could not 
be otherwise than painfully slow, and we began to fear 
that again we would reach the bottom of our grub sup- 
ply before coming to a real game country. The physical 
conditions along this range were almost ideal for either 
sheep, goats, or caribou, but the Siwash evidently had 
hunted it thoroughly; in fact, near the little tarn where 
we had seen the goats I had found a recent camp around 
which well-picked bones were scattered. The three goats 

308 



DOWN TO THE LONG CANYON 209 

were evidently survivors of a larger band, and we now 
reproached ourselves for not having stayed and hunted 
them. Finally, as we neared some black and seemingly 
impassable crags, Joe stopped and turned to me and said : 

"This range is no good. It's not what I thought it 
would be at all." 

"I have been disgusted with it for a long time," I 
returned. "Shall we try for the country where the 
Huston party had their luck .?" 

"We shall do no good here," he said with conviction. 

I was of the opinion that if we would follow the west- 
ern foot-hills of the range we were on, we would get into 
the country we desired to reach, but a rough sketch-map 
given me by Huston showed their trail starting from the 
Long Canyon, and Joe thought we would better turn 
down to the Canyon. 

"I'll leave you at the Canyon and go down the river 
after the canoe and more grub," said he. "I can make 
the trip in two days." 

"We'll make a decision about that when we get to 
the Canyon," I decided. 

We camped late that afternoon in the gorge of a little 
creek, a gorge so rough and narrow that we had much 
difficulty in finding a level spot large enough for our 
tent. Rain fell throughout the night and during the 
next day, while a snow-storm raged among the peaks 
overhead, but at noon, mindful of our diminishing grub 
supply, we defied the weather and set out. Of all the 
disagreeable travel we experienced during the whole trip 
that was undoubtedly the worst. Much of the time 



210 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

we were forced to wade in the bed of the creek, while 
the rain and the saturated boughs of willows and spruce 
soon wet us to the skin. The only compensation was 
the sight of a water-ouzel in a rocky pool. If ever there 
were two travelers who deserved the appellation of 
"drowned rats," we were those two travelers, when, after 
hours of stumbling and splashing, we at last reached 
the point where the little torrent plunged down into the 
Finlay. 

However, we built a roaring fire a mile farther up the 
river, pitched the tent, ate supper, and proceeded to dry 
ourselves out. I stripped off my wet clothes down to 
the skin, and did not put them on again until they were 
dry; as a result, I spent a reasonably comfortable night, 
snuggled down in my blanket sleeping-bag. Joe vainly 
tried to dry his garments on his body, with the result 
that he remained wet and cold throughout the night, 
though we kept a big fire going. 

Next morning it was still raining and gloomy, and, 
what was almost equally discouraging, we did not know 
where we were. The Finlay at that point flowed between 
high, steep cliffs, and the water was so tumultuous that 
we felt confident we had reached the Canyon, but the 
Canyon is twenty miles long, and we were anxious to 
find the spot where the Huston party had had their 
cache, for above it lay Sheep Creek, and from the mouth 
of Sheep Creek ran an old trail to the hunting country. 
Thinking that the creek we had descended might be 
Sheep Creek, Joe set out on a tour back into the bush 
to look for the trail, while I descended the cliff to the 



DOWN TO THE LONG CANYON 2H 

river to fish for arctic trout. I caught no fish, but half 
a mile or so up the river I came in sight of an immense, 
ragged boulder, "big as a house," lying in the middle of 
the stream, and as the Huston people had mentioned 
such a boulder as having been near their cache, I knew 
that I had succeeded in locating our position. After 
going somewhat farther up, I found their camp site and 
also their cache. 

The country along the river was so rough and so 
thickly covered with a terrific tangle of down timber 
that it was perfectly evident that to reach our cache 
and bring up the canoe would require several days, so 
we finally concluded to set out for the hunting-grounds 
with what we had and to trust to luck to see us through. 
As luck had not been kind to us recently, this decision 
to attempt to live off the country was hardly a cautious 
one, for our grub supply was already reduced to not to 
exceed five days' supply. We knew that the Huston 
party had required three days to get to the hunting 
country. If we reached it in the same length of time, 
we would have two days' full rations on which to hunt, 
and if we killed nothing, we would be compelled to make 
our way back to the cache on empty stomachs. It will 
be seen that there was a possibility of our being obliged 
to test the merits of fasting for a considerable period. 

I confess that the prospect caused me considerable 
worry, not so much over the possibility of going hungry 
as of being once more obliged to turn back empty-handed. 

Toward noon the weather cleared a bit, and after a 
hasty lunch we set out. At the Huston cache — a plat- 



212 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

form elevated on four posts — we left two cupfuls of flour 
and corn-meal for use on the return journey. From thence 
to the mouth of Sheep Creek was hardly more than half 
a mile in a direct line, but the ground was so broken by 
slides and so thickly covered with a tangle of down 
timber that it took us a full hour to reach it. We had 
already seen numerous old goat tracks and places where 
stubs and low-hanging limbs had pulled out long tufts 
of white wool, and we saw still more evidences of old 
Oreamnos along the brink of the gorge of Sheep Creek. 
These signs rather surprised me, for I had always thought 
of the mountain-goat as sticking pretty close to bare 
summits, yet here was a spot he frequented miles from 
a bare mountain top, and thickly overgrown with timber 
and bushes. Doubtless he felt at home there because 
the steep cliffs of the Canyon afforded him a refuge in 
case of danger. 

The walls of the Sheep Creek gorge were completely 
impassable, so we had to descend once more to the Fin- 
lay. While we rested at the mouth of the stream I 
once more tried fishing, but though the spot was a most 
favorable one, and I saw several big arctics, I could not 
get a single rise — another instance, it seemed to me, of 
the ill luck that was pursuing us. Half a dozen trout 
at that time would have been most acceptable. 

It was some consolation that when we began to climb 
out of the Finlay gorge we discovered a trail whose width 
showed that it had evidently been used years before by 
pack-horses. That horses had at some time been brought 
into the country we had concluded earlier in the day, 



DOWN TO THE LONG CANYON 213 

for we had found the skull of such an animal not far 
from our camp. It was a new experience to be follow- 
ing a travelled way, and though several times the trail 
became so faint that we were obliged to search for it, 
we never failed to find the old blazes and the path. 
There were half-obliterated boot marks in soft places, 
and these we judged had been made by the Huston party. 
A mile or so up the slope we found pieces of tin-foil, and 
several of the pictures that go with packages of a certain 
brand of milk chocolate. 

"They have already begun to feel the work," said 
Joe, "and are shovelling in coal." 

"It will be lucky if they took along a good supply," 
said I, "for then we shall be finding traces that will make 
us certain that we are on the right trail." 

The picture on the cards was of the relief expedition 
sent out to find the ill-fated Captain Scott. We hoped 
there was nothing ominous in it ! 

The trail so heartened us that we made great progress 
along it, particularly when we reached the level of a 
high, winding mountain valley through which it ran for 
a long distance. When we camped late that afternoon, 
we reckoned that we must have made ten miles. We 
had already passed the headwaters of Sheep Creek and 
had reached another small stream that flowed in the direc- 
tion we were travelling. The valley in places along this 
creek was open meadow, in places muskeg, while to east- 
ward rose the foot-hills of the range we had left, bald 
hills covered with bunch-grass. 

By eleven o'clock next day we reached a broader 



214 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

valley where our stream joined another larger one com- 
ing from the northeast. The valley seemed to break 
right through the range, and to furnish a low pass to the 
Fox River country. The valley was wide and marshy 
and overgrown with grass and willows, forming an ideal 
spot for moose. That it was a good place for game was 
borne out by signs of old Siwash camps. Our route now 
turned down the valley toward the west and passed a 
number of small lakes. Several times we lost the trail, 
but we always managed to find it again, and repeatedly 
we discovered more discarded chocolate coverings, show- 
ing that we were still following the route of the Huston 
party. We also saw along the trail boot marks that 
I knew were much too recent to have been made by 
that party — already out a full month — but Joe, whose 
ability to read signs of this sort was astonishingly 
poor, persisted in saying they were older than they 
looked. 

In the afternoon we were much surprised to come in 
sight of a cabin standing at the edge of the valley. It 
had a rude porch in front, an elevated cache to one 
side, and on the roof were the wooden trees of two an- 
cient pack-saddles. Evidently we were getting far 
enough to the west to be within reach of travel from 
Telegraph Creek on the Stickine. On the door were 
written in pencil the names of the Huston party. On 
opening the door, which was not even latched, one of the 
first objects we beheld was a big, bushy-tailed rat, or 
pack-rat, on a beam. There was a double bunk but 
seemingly no belongings of value except a bunch of traps 



DOWN TO THE LONG CANYON 215 

lying on top of the grub-box. I took these off, opened 
the Hd, and looked in. 

"Why, Joe," I exclaimed, "It's full of grub !" 

Together we peered Into the box, which contained a 
slab of bacon and several small neat sacks full of food. 
From the feel we could tell that there was sugar, beans, 
flour, rice, and dried apples. 

"It must be left-over stuff from last spring," said 
Joe. 

I opened the dried-apple sack and took two or three 
pieces out. "These are too fresh for that," said I, show- 
ing him the apples. 

The thought flashed through my head that the Hus- 
ton party must have left the food, but then I remem- 
bered the fresh tracks we had seen along the trail, and 
we both agreed that some trapper must have come Into 
the region and was distributing his grub supply. 

We would have given a good deal for a few pounds 
of that food. If we had been actually hungry we would, 
of course, have taken some of it. In accordance with the 
custom of the country, leaving some money In payment. 
But we could not help remembering that the trapper 
who had brought it In must have done so at the ex- 
penditure of a great deal of work, and we realized that 
if the next February or March his supply should run 
short. It would be cold comfort for him to feel in his 
pocket the silver we might leave in payment for any- 
thing we might take. Ultimately we decided not to 
take any of the food, but, in case we should be starving 
on the way out, to make use of some of it. If we had 



2i6 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

known the real facts about that grub — but of this I 
shall have something to say later. 

Beyond the cabin the trail for some miles was the 
best we had yet seen. Then we came to extensive burns 
and not only lost it but had bad going. We crossed two 
rushing creeks flowing down from the mountains on our 
right. Sunset found us in a dry muskeg, thinly sprinkled 
with small spruce, both living and dead, and we made a 
good camp, with plenty of dry wood. We had long since 
lost the trail, and with it all traces of the Huston party, 
but we had seen some old tracks of caribou, and Joe 
had shot a fool hen, which we used as a foundation for 
a little mulligan. 

I think that here is a good place to confess that for 
two or three days I had been feeling downhearted. It 
was one of the times when I felt, as I had expected to 
feel, that if the good Lord would get me safely home 
once more, I would never again set out on such a wild- 
goose chase. Luck had run so steadily against us that 
in these pessimistic moments I definitely concluded that 
no matter what efforts I might make I was destined to 
return home with no other trophy of my journey than 
the skin of one brown bear, and, as Joe had nailed this 
up on the side of the storehouse at Grahame — much 
lower than I had advised — I half expected that the Si- 
wash huskies would have torn it down and chewed it up. 

That I felt thus depressed was due no doubt to my 
being weary, worn out, and hungry. For several days, 
in order to conserve our scanty stock of food, I had been 
stinting myself — a proceeding that proved most discour- 



DOWN TO THE LONG CANYON 217 

aging, for it seemed that the less I ate and the Hghter 
our suppHes became the more Joe consumed. Great as 
are his merits, Joe is not the man to take on a trip where 
there exists a prospect of the grub supply faihng ! 

Thinking the whole matter over, I half concluded 
that I might have had a better time if I had taken my 
vacation at some big summer hotel where there were 
plenty of ladies, electric lights, and where the guests 
dressed for dinner. The thought of the dinners I was 
missing was both fascinating and provoking. To have 
been able to sit down to even one of them I would will- 
ingly have donned my claw-hammer coat any number 
of times ! 

But such are some of the drawbacks of roughing it in 
the wilderness. Elsewhere I have compared the moun- 
tains to a woman. If one is fortunate enough to enjoy 
her favors, he ought to be able now and then to endure 
her frowns. 



CHAPTER XVI 

AN OPPORTUNE MEETING WITH A BEAR 

Ten o'clock next day found us seated on a steep 
mountainside on the brink of a cliff that bounded a 
basin. We did not know exactly where we were going, 
but Huston's rough map seemed to indicate that we 
should turn northeastward in this locality, and we had 
done so. We hoped that when we reached the summit 
the hunting-grounds would at last lay revealed before 
us, though we had an uneasy feeling that perhaps they 
lay in a range we saw farther ahead — so distant that I 
knew in my heart we would never reach them. The 
going up the mountain had been both steep and rough, 
and both of us were winded and weary. For days I had 
been travelling on will rather than physical strength, 
and even the will was about exhausted. I actually had 
begun to doubt whether my tortured leg muscles could 
be made to drag me up to the yet distant summit. 

Before and beneath us there unfolded another mag- 
nificent panorama. Far away and much below us lay 
the Finlay and the gorge of the Long Canyon, while to 
our right spread out the pond-studded valley of Porcu- 
pine Creek flowing down from the north. Beyond the 
valley loomed the many, forbidding, snow-capped peaks 
of the range that I had begun to call the Kitchener 

Mountains, while yet farther away, very far away in- 

218 



OPPORTUNE MEETING WITH A BEAR 219 

deed, we could see the bold cliffs of the Casslars. Even 
the basin beneath us was a spectacle well worth behold- 
ing. At the head and on the sides it was hemmed in 
by cliffs, and it ended far below in a sea of green forest. 
In places the floor of the basin was carpeted with grass, 
interspersed with heaps of slide rock and clumps of 
bushes. 

As we had been toiling up the edge of the basin for 
an hour or more, my interest in the spectacle had waned, 
and I was sitting in a sort of lethargy when Joe crept 
close to me and whispered eagerly: 

"There's a bear over yonder !" 

Galvanized into life, I looked in the direction his 
finger indicated and saw instantly that he was not mis- 
taken. At the foot of one of the cliffs, near the head of 
the basin and well toward the opposite side, on a little 
slope covered with blueberry-bushes, there was a black 
bear. He was busy eating berries, and his glossy hair 
rippled beautifully in the wind. We slunk down on the 
cliff top and lay watching him. We were both desper- 
ately anxious to kill that bear. We needed him ! 

"How far is he ?" I whispered. 

"Four or five hundred yards," said Joe. 

It was too far to take a chance when so much was 
at stake, and we looked round to find a way of getting 
closer. Farther up the rim of the basin a sort of cliff 
peninsula projected out some distance. We clambered 
down the cliff on which we lay and scrambled over slide 
rock to that point of vantage. We had hoped to find 
ourselves in good shooting distance, but when we peered 



220 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

over the edge bruin still appeared a long way off, four 
hundred yards at least. I looked at him through my 
rifle sights, and the front bead just about covered his 
whole body. Now four hundred yards is not such a des- 
perately long distance to shoot at a target, but it is a 
long distance on a mountainside when you are not sure 
that it may not be five hundred or three hundred, and 
when eating or going hungry depends upon your hitting 
the mark ! 

Eagerly we looked around for some route that would 
bring us closer. There seemed to be no practical one. 
If we tried to descend into the basin and sneak nearer, 
we would certainly be heard. A detour to the top of 
the cliff below which the bear was feeding would take a 
full hour, and besides the wind was unfavorable. For 
the time, therefore, we did nothing and simply lay there 
on the cliff watching him and hoping he would come 
nearer. 

Though it was late in the day for a bear to be feed- 
ing, he still seemed to be very hungry; through my 
glasses I could see him gobbling down blueberries, stems 
and all, like a champion pie eater at a county fair. By 
and by he apparently thinned out the supply on that 
slope, for he moved twenty or thirty yards toward us 
to another, but this evidently proved disappointing, for 
he remained there only two or three minutes and fed 
back toward the first. 

The suspense of waiting was very trying to me, and 
I discussed with Joe the practicability of making a short 
detour up the rim, climbing down into the basin, and 



OPPORTUNE MEETING WITH A BEAR 221 

trying to sneak closer behind the point of a projecting 
cHff. I was eager but calm enough and had my nerves 
well enough under control, but Joe seemed to think I 
did not, for he kept saying: 

''Don't get excited ! Don't get excited V 

He needed the advice himself, for just after he had 
uttered the words for about the third or fourth time 

"Bang!" rang out a shot. "Spat!" went a bullet 
against a cliff a hundred feet perhaps from the bear, and 
"Bang!" in diminuendo came the echo from the cliffs 
across the basin. 

Joe had been keeping his rifle — he did not know It — 
at full cock, and happening unconsciously to tighten his 
finger on the trigger, the weapon had responded as de- 
scribed. At that moment I could cheerfully have kicked 
him off the cliff and emptied five soft-nosed .401 bullets 
into his carcass, but I contented myself with an exple- 
tive or two and turned my attention to the bear. 

I saw a most Interesting sight. The animal had been 
totally unaware of our presence, nor had he yet made us 
out. He had heard merely the report of the rifle, the 
spat of the bullet, and the echoes, and he was badly 
confused. For a few moments he stood perfectly still, 
and then ran right in our direction for perhaps thirty 
yards, and hid In a little patch of brush about the size 
of a small room. His behavior throws light on many 
alleged "charges" made by bears whose only thought is 
of escape. 

For several minutes he remained In the bushes out of 
sight; then sneaked out on the other side and set off as 



222 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

if he had selected a destination and meant to reach it. 
It was clear that the time had come to shoot, and, be- 
cause of our urgent need of meat we had already agreed 
that both should fire. My Lyman sight was set at 350 
yards. Lying prone on the cliff top, with my elbows 
resting firmly on the rock, I was most favorably stationed 
for a shot, and when the bear paused for a second, broad- 
side on, I took a short but careful aim and pulled the 
trigger. He lurched down in his hindquarters, then re- 
covered himself and started off down-hill at a consider- 
able pace, but we clearly saw that I had broken his left 
hind leg. Joe fired twice in quick succession, and when 
the animal paused once more, I once more let drive, and 
again Joe pulled trigger. At my shot the beast seemed 
to collapse, so to speak, yet again he pulled himself to- 
gether and, half running, half sliding, down a steep slope, 
disappeared in a thicket of scrubby birch and poplar 
bushes. 

I was confident that, wounded as he was, he could 
not climb the slope, but thought it possible that he might 
make off down the basin, so I left Joe on the cliff to keep 
watch, while I hastily took off my heavy boots and 
scrambled down the cliff into the basin below the bear. 
Then I cautiously crept up to the thicket and into it, 
being careful to make sure that I knew what was within 
a radius of twenty or thirty feet, for I thought it barely 
possible that, wounded as he was, the beast might pluck 
up enough courage to charge. To tell the truth, I rather 
hoped he would, for I knew that with the heavy auto- 
matic I could easily stop him, whereas I was not sure 




Reproduced from a photoprraph by M. B. Huston. 

HrSTOX PARTY OX WAY UP MOUNTAINS 




" Hk was a fink. fat. hi..\( k HI' Ak. 



OPPORTUNE MEETING WITH A BEAR 223 

that If he made off in the opposite direction he might 
not get away. Presently, however, above and to the 
right, I saw a spot where the grass was bent down as if 
by some animal dragging over It, and both grass and 
earth were copiously sprinkled with frothy red blood — 
the sure sign of a lung shot. Following this trail a few 
yards, I found the bear lying dead against the trunk of 
a sapling. A sort of bellow he had uttered as I was 
descending the cliff had evidently been his death-cry. 

He was a fine, fat, black bear, not too old, and his 
coat for the fall was unusually fine. When we came to 
examine him closely, we found that two bullets had 
struck him. One had hit his left thigh, tearing the 
muscles badly and shattering the bone. The other had 
penetrated his left front leg, had passed out under the 
armpit, had entered the body, and had passed out on 
the other side. When Joe had examined these holes, he 
said: 

"Of course, you hit him in the leg, but that bullet 
hole in the shoulder looks like one from my .30-30." 

I felt sure, from the bear's behavior, that my second 
bullet had gone home, and I saw that the entrance hole 
was plenty big enough to admit a .401. We did not 
argue the matter, however, but after we had the skin 
mostly off I set out down the basin for some water — a 
long, hard job, for I had to descend at least a thousand 
feet — leaving Joe to finish skinning the animal and cut 
it up. When I returned he handed me the outside cas- 
ing of a bullet he had found In the bear's body cavity. 
It was from a .401. I shall not pretend to deny that I 



224 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

felt happy it was so, the more, perhaps, because of the 
fiasco with the goat. 

The beast was certainly what our trapper friend, 
Scott, on Parsnip River, would call "a ripe bear." He 
was as fat as a prize pig, and from him we later rendered 
out enough lard to last us back to Finlay Forks, though 
we used only a little of the fat at that. As we were fam- 
ishing for meat, we soon had some steaks sizzling in the 
pan, and we ate and ate and ate — panful after panful, as 
fast as it would fry. 

For me it was a most delightful day. Luck had 
changed at last. The bear had saved the situation. I 
not only had the beast to my credit, but we now had 
an abundance of meat and could hunt the region indefi- 
nitely. 

It was mid-afternoon before we finally set out once 
more toward the summit. We were weighted down, not 
only with the old contents of our packs, but with the 
bearskin and an abundance of meat. The slope was ex- 
ceedingly steep, fifty degrees at least, and the sun was 
near to setting when we at last reached the crest. 

A pleasant prospect lay before us. The mountain 
on which we stood sloped down a few hundred feet to 
a high Alpine valley, partly overgrown with balsam- 
trees, but with large grassy areas also. Beyond rose a 
loftier range of mountains, the summits of which were 
craggy and rugged to the last degree, but the slopes of 
which were delightfully smooth and covered with grass. 
Here and there, both up and down the range, lay fine 
big basins, and in one of them gleamed a tiny lakelet. 



OPPORTUNE MEETING WITH A BEAR 225 

On the slope of the mountain directly opposite I 
noted a patch of green herbage that contrasted strongly 
with the dead brown of most of the grass and that evi- 
dently marked the spot where a tiny rill took its rise. 
The patch was fully two miles away, and the light was 
beginning to fail, yet It seemed to me that I could dis- 
cern some tiny objects, no bigger than small bugs, mov- 
ing about on it. I trained my glasses on the patch and 
saw that I had made no mistake. Four or five whitish 
animals were grazing on the slope, one of them consider- 
ably darker than the rest. Whether they were goats or 
sheep I could not be sure; beyond question they were 
game. 

It seemed that at last we had reached the happy 
hunting-grounds ! 



CHAPTER XVII 
STONE'S MOUNTAIN-SHEEP 

It was too late to go after the animals I had seen on 
the mountainside opposite, so we hurried down into the 
valley to make camp before nightfall. Joe wanted to 
camp beside the lakelet, where we would have been in 
full view of a large part of the region, but I promptly 
vetoed this harebrained idea, for I was determined to 
take no chances of alarming game. Instead, I selected 
a spot in the valley in a grove of balsam. A little brook 
ran near by, sometimes above the ground, sometimes 
beneath it, furnishing a plentiful supply of clear, cold 
water, while there were a number of dead trees for fire- 
wood. As I expected to remain here for some time, I 
cut an extra large supply of balsam boughs and made 
the softest beds of the whole trip. 

That night and again next morning we filled up on 
fried bear-steak, and after tacking up the bear hide on 
two trees that grew conveniently close together near the 
tent, we set off with the rifles and cameras to investigate 
the slope on which the afternoon before we had seen the 
wild animals. When we got to timber-line we examined 
the slope carefully through our glasses. At first we saw 
nothing, and Joe had given over looking, but by and by 
I caught sight of a slight movement not far from the 

green patch, and presently I made out the back of some 

226 



STONE'S MOUNTAIN-SHEEP 227 

animal. From where we lay the slope looked almost 
perfectly level, but it was clear that there was a slight 
depression where I saw the animal. The beast disap- 
peared for a bit, then reappeared with two others, though 
we could see only a little of any of them. The color of 
the one I saw most clearly was such that I thought pos- 
sible the thing was a caribou; then I caught sight of a 
set of spiral horns, and I knew that what I beheld were 
mountain-sheep. Whether the animals had remained in 
that place all night, or whether they had slept upon the 
cliffs and then had returned in the early morning we 
could not know; all we did know was that there they 
were and that it was our problem to get them. 

But how .? The wind, to be sure, was favorable, but 
the spot the sheep had selected was on a level, grassy 
mountainside, hundreds of yards from any appreciable 
cover. Joe declared flatly that it would be impossible 
to get within good shooting distance. 

"You are always in too much of a hurry,'* he said, 
referring probably to my precipitancy with the goats. 

For an hour or so we watched the animals and stud- 
ied the slope from several different points. I expected 
any minute for them to start up the mountain, and it 
was clear that if they once got upon the cliffs our chance 
of killing them would be small. From a little to our 
left a shallow gully ran up the mountain, gradually 
broadening out into level ground about four hundred 
yards below the sheep. Studying the slope intently 
through my glasses, I thought I perceived a possibility 
of following up this gully as far as it went, and then 



228 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

making an approach behind a small swell that rose four 
or five feet above the general level of the slope to the 
right of and a little below the animals. I explained the 
plan to Joe, told him that I meant to make the trial, 
and left him. His silence was eloquent of his disap- 
proval and of his belief that I would fail. 

I resolved, however, to neglect no precaution. I 
took plenty of time, even to making the walk up the 
gully; arrived at the end of it, I rested a bit to steady 
my nerves and reconnoitre and to pull off my boots. 
By taking advantage of a clump of low juniper I man- 
aged to crawl from the gully and get behind the swell 
and thence worm my way up the slope. I felt horribly 
exposed, and knew that if one of the animals should 
move a few yards in any direction I would certainly be 
discovered. Joe said afterward that once the biggest 
ram did, in fact, walk in my direction a bit and stand 
with head thrown back, scrutinizing the landscape. Joe 
thought that I had certainly been seen, but it was not 
so, for the ram walked back and lay down again. 

Three-quarters of an hour, perhaps, after I started 
on the stalk I reached the lower edge of the little swell 
behind which I had made my approach, and I knew 
that I must not be more than a hundred yards from the 
animals. I felt that only a stroke of desperately bad 
luck could now prevent me from obtaining at least a 
fair running shot. Again I rested until my pulse was 
running normal. I did not want to boggle the affair 
now, for it was by no means certain that I would have 
another chance at sheep; the Huston party had seen 



STONE'S MOUNTAIN-SHEEP 229 

only two. And I was more eager to get a sheep than 
any other animal, except perhaps a grizzly. Slowly I 
crept up the little swell till I had almost reached its 
highest point, and again I rested. I had decided that 
it would be better simply to rise up than to attempt to 
crawl in sight of the animals, for the swell was so round 
and nearly level that the sheep would almost certainly 
have seen me before I could have seen them. Quietly 
I rose part way up, only to discover that I was as yet 
not quite far enough. Once more I edged myself closer, 
rested again, rose to my feet. 

Forty yards ahead, half hidden in a hollow behind 
some weeds and grass, stood what seemed to be a young 
ram. I quickly fired for his shoulder. The bullet 
seemed to paralyze the beast in his tracks, but he did 
not fall; as I afterward ascertained, the missile had 
struck a trifle too low to be immediately fatal. I took 
no chances but, almost as quickly as I could pull trigger 
again, sent in another bullet that brought him down. 
Then I whirled to the left where, through the tail of my 
eye, I had caught sight of a commotion. Forty yards 
from the first animal and perhaps seventy from me 
three other sheep had sprung to their feet from a little 
hollow, and I saw that one was a good-sized ram. He 
started to run, but before he had gathered any headway 
I caught him high in the hip and brought him to a stand- 
still. Another bullet killed him. 

The other sheep, a ewe and a young ram lamb, were 
so startled and terrified that they seemed completely 
crazed. They ran off some distance, then returned to 



230 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

the top of a little rise, not fifty yards from where I stood 
by the bigger sheep, and stared down at me with big, 
wild eyes. I would have given a good deal for the 
camera at that moment, for their nearness and pose 
would have enabled me to obtain one of the grandest 
animal pictures ever taken, but when Joe came puffing 
and blowing up the mountainside with it, they ran off. 
They hung around, however, for some minutes, and I 
succeeded in taking a distant picture of them. Finally 
they circled far enough to get our wind and then made 
their way up the mountain, and we saw them no more. 
The animals whose careless watch had led to the 
death of two of their number were Stone's sheep {ovis 
stonei). These creatures are the most southern species 
of the northern sheep and, in a way, form a sort of 
connecting-link between the ordinary bighorns of the 
United States and southern Canada, and the whiter 
sheep farther north. The gap between Stone's sheep 
and the ordinary bighorn is, however, much more pro- 
nounced than that between Stone's sheep and Fannin's 
sheep or even Dall's sheep; in fact, these northern species 
seem gradually to merge into one another. The color 
of the Stone's sheep varies with the locality, with the 
sexes, and even with individuals. The back, sides, and 
the fronts of the legs of my bigger ram were a dark 
brown in color, with a few scattered grayish hairs 
interspersed; except for these hairs, the color was 
not unlike that of the ordinary bighorn. The backs 
of the legs, the belly, and the rump patch were a 
dirty white; the diminutive tail was almost black, 




()l K (AMP IN THE liALSAM GrO\E. 




A Stone's Sheep. 



STONE'S MOUNTAIN-SHEEP 231 

and the neck and head were iron-gray, the head 
almost white. The ewe appeared to be practically white 
almost all over, except for a black tail. Both the slain 
animals were large, the bigger weighing probably two 
hundred and forty pounds, but neither had very large 
horns, for neither was yet very old. Close by where 
they fell I picked up a considerably larger horn that had 
probably belonged to a ram killed by the Indians some 
years before. 

We took the skin of the larger sheep entire (and, of 
course, the head), for I was under the impression that 
no complete specimens of sheep had been taken out of 
that country, and I knew that for years the American 
Biological Survey had been making a careful study of 
the distribution and characteristics of mountain-sheep, 
partly in the hope of throwing light upon evolution and 
the origin of species. On my return home I learned 
from Mr. E. A. Preble that the Survey had no record 
of sheep having been found in the vicinity in which I 
had killed these. Later I sent the skin and head to 
the Survey for examination and comparison by Mr. 
Preble and Mr. E. W. Nelson, both authorities on sheep. 
Mr. Preble writes me that the ram is very similar to one 
collected by Mr. Vreeland near Laurier Pass, among the 
minor differences being that the back and shoulder of 
my specimen are somewhat browner and the sides of the 
cheek and neck more flecked with iron-gray. 

From the smaller sheep we took the horns and a 
portion of the skull, and from both animals we cut the 
best of the meat. In the next two days we devoted 



232 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

much time to caring for our trophies and to drying meat. 
The sheep and bear skins had to be scraped, the fat re- 
moved, and the skins stretched out to dry. Fortunately 
the weather was clear and the sun hot, so that the dry- 
ing was quickly and well done. The bighorn skull had 
to be denuded of flesh and brains — no small task of it- 
self. We cut a great deal of the meat into strips and 
hung it on a rack that we rigged up in front of the tent, 
where it would catch the sun and also receive some 
smoke and heat from the fire. Meat dried in this way 
will last indefinitely, and though the flavor is not much 
to boast of, the meat is nourishing and goes well in 
mulligans and similar concoctions. For my people at 
home I dried a few pounds of both sheep and bear, ac- 
cording to the receipt given by Hornaday; that is, I first 
rubbed on the meat a mixture of black pepper, allspice, 
and salt, after which I dried the strips in the sun. 

We were no longer in danger of hunger. We nad 
great heaps of meat. When we tired of sheep meat we 
tried bear meat; we had both in every style — fried, 
roasted, and boiled, and between meals I even stuck 
pieces on sticks before the fire and "siwashed" them. 
Meat was almost our sole diet, for we had only three or 
four cups of mixed corn-meal and flour, with plenty of 
salt and tea but no sugar. Each meal we ate a tiny 
piece of bannock and filled up on meat. The amount 
of meat that a healthy man will consume under such cir- 
cumstances is unbelievable. I am afraid to tell how 
much we ate, but I will say that after this experience I 
ceased to doubt stories I had heard of half a dozen 




"The Camp Robbers, or Canada jays, found our meat-rack irresistibly 

attractive." 










*-^ 



ML- ' 



Thk GnkcK OF Siii.li> Ckki:k. 



STONE'S MOUNTAIN-SHEEP 233 

hungry Siwash consuming a whole caribou in a single 
night. 

My only regret was that we had not had some of this 
luck up the Quadacha. Then we would have reached 
the glacier ! 

We were not alone in the feasting. The camp-rob- 
bers, or Canada jays, found our meat-rack irresistibly 
attractive. There were dozens of them squawking round 
the camp, and not only did they gorge themselves full, 
but they carried off pieces of meat and cached them for 
future reference. Troublesome as these birds are, they 
almost gain one's admiration by their very impudence. 

After an early supper on the day we killed the sheep 
we climbed to the basin that contained the lakelet, and 
found a few old caribou tracks, but no recent signs of 
game of any sort. The spot was a wonderfully pic- 
turesque one, for the water was clear as crystal, while 
on three sides the black cliffs rose sheer for thousands 
of feet. We lingered there until sunset and on the 
homeward way sat down on a high ridge and watched 
the pink sky fade behind the hundred miles of jagged 
peaks that form the Kitchener Range. It has been my 
fortune to see a few sublime sights in nature's picture- 
gallery, and this was one of them. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

WE BUILD A RAFT AND RUN PART OF THE LONG 

CANYON 

One fact at least I learned from this trip to Peace 
River headwaters: by the time one has travelled five or 
six hundred miles by canoe, much of it up-stream, and 
has toiled over the mountains for weeks with a heavy 
pack-sack he is so tired and worn out that he has neither 
the strength nor the ambition to hunt very hard. After 
killing the Stone's sheep as described in the last chapter 
we examined the country round, but saw no other game. 
There were old caribou tracks about the lakelet and 
elsewhere, but the animals themselves had either mi- 
grated on account of the change of season, or else had 
been scared out of the country by the Huston party. 
We had hoped that the carcasses of the sheep might 
attract a grizzly, but they did not, and lack of sign led 
us to conclude that there were few bears of any sort in 
the region. 

By moving camp farther up the range we probably 
could have found caribou or other game, but we already 
had all the trophies we could carry, and the addition of 
a caribou head would have meant another trip — a matter 
of ten days at least. In view of the time of year this 
would be a serious matter, for though the weather had 

been reasonably good thus far, and we were able, by 

234 



WE BUILD A RAFT 235 

keeping a fire going, to make ourselves reasonably com- 
fortable at night, there was no knowing when a blizzard 
might strike down and render the task of getting out 
extremely disagreeable at best. Already the summits of 
the mountains were blanketed with a white pall, most of 
the summer birds had long since departed, and long 
strings of ducks and geese from the lonely lakes and 
fens of the farther north were streaming southward 
across the sky. Furthermore, I was a bit fed up on 
slaughter, and the sight of so much meat rotting on the 
mountainsides dulled the edge of my desire for the 
chase. When we felt fairly rested from our strenuous 
labors of the past weeks we decided to set out on the 
return, thinking that I would probably have a chance 
at a bear or a moose along the rivers on the long way 
out. 

The way was long Indeed. We figured that we were 
twenty-seven miles at least from the canyon, while from 
there by river to our canoe and cache was about twenty- 
three miles more. Fifty miles in a civilized country does 
not seem far, but here it was another matter, and we 
expected to be a week or thereabouts in reaching once 
more the longed-for supplies in our cache. After that 
would come the canoe voyage down the Finlay, down 
Peace River through the mountains, around the great 
Canyon, and from Hudson's Hope to rail-head at Peace 
River Crossing — weeks of steady paddling. Even Joe 
had never taken such a trip, and he remarked that it 
was "a long way to Tipperary!" 

A day's hard travel by a shorter route brought us to 



236 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

an old Siwash camp on a bluff overlooking the creek on 
which stood the trapper's cabin. We stopped at this 
cabin and, as the bunch of traps that had been on top 
of the grub-box was gone, we knew that the trapper had 
been back that way; in fact, we saw his fresh tracks. 
The grub had not been disturbed, and we felt so weary 
of a practically straight meat diet that we took enough 
flour to make a big bannock, leaving in exchange some 
tea and four small cans of dehydrated cranberries and 
dehydrated onions, together with a note explaining our 
plight and the reason for making the exchange. We 
wondered a good deal who this trapper could be and 
whence he had come, nor did we ever learn, but I feel 
sure he must have entered the country by way of Tele- 
graph Creek on the Stickine. 

Soon after we camped I crept out to the edge of the 
bluff overlooking the marshy bottom, and had been 
there hardly a minute when I saw a moose stick its head 
out of the spruce woods on the other side and take a 
look over the meadow. After surveying the scene for a 
minute or two it withdrew its head and I could catch 
occasional glimpses of it walking among the low spruce 
just beyond the edge of the marsh. Two or three times 
it reappeared at the edge to reconnoitre, and I could not 
but admire the craft it displayed in looking for enemies 
before venturing out on its feeding-ground. Finally it 
seemed to become convinced that the coast was clear, 
for it stepped from the woods into the open, and was 
quickly hidden from view in a fringe of willows that 
grew along the creek. 



WE BUILD A RAFT 237 

The animal was nearly half a mile away, but even at 
that distance I could see that it was very large. I was 
particularly struck with the size of the "bell," but the 
creature moved so quickly in the open that I was unable 
to make out anything about its horns. From the size 
of the animal and of the "bell," however, I assumed 
that it was a bull. 

Dusk was already falling, and it was useless to try 
to hunt the animal that evening. However, we had 
decided to rest a day at this place, and I watched the 
marsh next morning, but without result. At three 
o'clock in the afternoon I made my way to a timbered 
"island" in the marsh and hid myself on a little hill 
about three hundred yards from the point where the 
moose appeared the evening before. The place com- 
manded not only a view of the marsh for a long distance, 
but also of the pass leading toward Fox River and of 
the mountains on either side of it. These mountains 
are exceedingly rugged, and their summits are either 
bare, black rock or else are covered with dwarf shrubs. 
On the lower slopes groves of poplars, touched by the 
autumnal frosts, glowed like vast beds of yellow tulips, 
while the leaves on the shrubs had been transformed to 
a magnificent bronze color. Even yet the spectacle rises 
vivid before me: the yellow poplars, the bronze shrub- 
bery, the wide pass, and the black cliffs of the peaks on 
either side. How glorious, to be sure, are the pictures 
preserved on the film of memory ! 

It was clear to me now that had we kept on up the 
Fox River range instead of turning down to the Long 



238 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

Canyon we would have reached this pass, though we 
would have met with great difficulties on the way, for 
the summits were exceedingly rugged. The mountains 
on which I had killed the sheep and the bear were merely 
a continuation beyond the pass of the Fox River range. 

For half an hour or so the only incident to break the 
monotony of my watch was the sight of a hawk chasing 
a small duck; from the speed of the duck I concluded 
that the only thing the hawk would get out of the pur- 
suit was exercise. I did not expect to see the moose 
until late in the afternoon, and was, therefore, rather 
surprised, on scrutinizing the patch of willows where 
the animal had disappeared the preceding day, to catch 
a glimpse of the beast moving about. There were really 
only a few willows, small and scattered, yet so sinuous 
and crafty was the animal that for long intervals I was 
unable, even from my elevation, to see it at all, and it 
was fully half an hour before I got a good look at its 
head. When I finally did so I experienced keen disap- 
pointment. Despite its size and the big "bell," the 
animal was hornless ! Instead of a bull the moose was 
merely an unusually big cow with an unusually big bell. 

I could easily have shot the animal, for it was hardly 
two hundred yards distant, and by and by it wandered 
still nearer, cropping willows. Had I been vouchsafed 
the same opportunity on the way out, I am afraid I 
would have embraced it, but now we had plenty of meat 
and the thing was not to be thought of. I tried to secure 
a picture of the animal, but she kept so carefully to the 
cover of the willows that in this, too, I was disappointed. 



WE BUILD A RAFT 239 

For a long time she waded about in the thicket, then 
finally worked her way behind the projecting point of 
another island, and I saw her no more. 

Why, I want to ask here, are these northwestern 
moose practically voiceless ? On neither of my trips to 
that region have I heard a moose bellow, and trappers 
tell me that these moose rarely call. Yet they seem to 
be identical with the eastern moose, and the eastern 
bulls make the woods resound in the rutting season. 

That night we were favored — not for the first time — 
with a magnificent display of the aurora borealis. As I 
watched the shifting, uncanny shafts of light in the cold 
northern sky it occurred to me that the Crees were very 
apt when they called the phenomenon "the dance of 
the spirits." 

A watch in the cold, frosty air next morning proved 
unproductive, so we set off for the Long Canyon, which 
we reached about five o'clock in the afternoon, and re- 
joiced when we found our little bag of flour and meal 
untouched. The only incident worthy of remark on the 
trip was the sight of a fresh sheep wallow and fresh 
sheep tracks on the brink of the gorge of Sheep Creek, 
not two hundred yards from the Finlay. 

Some distance above the Long Canyon the Finlay 
bends to the southward again and takes its rise in Thu- 
tade Lake. So far as I am aware, only three parties 
of white men have ever ascended the river above the 
Long Canyon : Finlay's party, McConnell's party, and a 
certain Billy Hedges, a trapper and prospector, who was 
accompanied by one or two companions. McConnell 



240 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

got only as far as the "Fishing Lakes," where he found 
many moose. He attributes the number of animals in 
that locality to the fact that the Siwash have a super- 
stitious dread of the country; those who accompanied 
him could hardly be prevailed upon to enter its pre- 
cincts. At Grahame one of the Indians drew in the 
sand for McConnell's edification a sketch of a footprint 
he declared he had seen, and it was fully three feet long. 
Later one of the Indians deserted rather than face the 
reputed monsters. 

Both Finlay and Hedges got as far as Thutade 
Lake. When Hedges came out three years ago he 
brought with him three grizzly cubs, which he named 
Romeo, Juliet, and Seton. Seton died, but the other 
two grew up to bearhood. When Hedges enlisted and 
went to the war, he sold his pets to a menagerie. 

At the Long Canyon we were only about twenty- 
three miles from our cache and canoe, but the going 
by land was wretchedly bad, owing to rough country 
and burned timber, and we reckoned that it would 
take us about three days of hard labor to make the 
trip. We were both anxious to get to the cache, 
partly to assure ourselves of its safety, but mainly 
because we were hankering for some of its contents. 

"The first thing I shall open when we get there is 
that pot of jam," I said that night as we sat before 
our fire on a shelf of the canyon wall. This state- 
ment was remarkable because at home I rarely eat 
jam. I presume that my appetite for it now was due 
to the fact that for more than a week we had been 



WE BUILT A RAFT 241 

without sugar or sweets of any sort except a few bars 
of milk chocolate. 

A grin lit up Joe's dusky features. ''I was just 
thinking of that jam myself," he said. 

"Hot cakes with some of that maple syrup will go 
pretty well, too," I continued. 

"I want some of those beans," declared Joe. 

The prospect of waiting three days before we could 
reach the delectable jam and other desirable delicacies 
did not appeal to us. Furthermore, we were weary of 
carrying those heavy packs over rough country, and 
were desperate enough for anything. Ever since reach- 
ing the Canyon the first time, we had vaguely spoken 
of building a raft and running down the river. We now 
definitely decided to do so. To be sure, we knew next 
to nothing about the water in that stretch of the stream, 
except that it was very rough, but we knew that the 
Huston party had managed to get this far with boats. 
It was true that they might have made several port- 
ages in doing so, but the rapids and whirlpools could 
go hang ! We were going to have that jam and to have 
it the very next evening ! 

When we came to take itemized stock of our mate- 
rials for raft-building, we found that we had eight ten- 
penny nails, which I had been carrying in my sack, a 
few bits of twine, the straps on our pack-sacks, and 
some medicated gauze ! We also picked up a few feet 
of old, half-rotten rope left by the Huston party, and 
we noticed that there were some nails in the Huston 
cache. Our only tool was a hatchet. 



242 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

Bright and early next morning Joe found some dead 
spruce two or three hundred feet up the Canyon wall, 
and while he chopped five logs I made a mulligan, sal- 
vaged some nails from the Huston cache, and slid the 
logs down hill to a convenient beach below the cache. 
These things done, we assembled the logs on rollers at 
the edge of the water, with the two larger logs on the 
outside, and mortised in crosspieces at each end. These 
we nailed to the logs, and we also tied the logs to these 
crosspieces with our sundry straps, twine, rope, and 
twisted gauze ! Finally I nailed on two transverse 
pieces to keep the logs from weaving back and forth. 
The great trouble was the weakness of the lashings 
and the shortness of the nails. Finally I cut two dry 
spruce poles, while Joe made some wonderful paddles, 
or sweeps, by nailing slabs of wood to some shorter 
poles. 

It was after three o'clock in the afternoon before 
the good craft Necessity was launched and our belong- 
ings placed upon it, well wrapped in the balloon-silk 
tent. It hardly seemed possible that we could reach 
our canoe and cache before night fell, but the attraction 
of the jam was irresistible, and after I had taken two 
pictures we pushed off. In our hurry we left our big- 
gest bag of dried meat, which we had lugged so far, 
lying upon the beach — to the joy, no doubt, of some 
coyote or bear. 

The ride that followed was decidedly the most ex- 
hilarating it has ever been my good fortune to enjoy. 
We were immediately in rough water, and, past the first 



WE BUILD A RAFT 243 

bend, we were caught by a whirlpool that whirled us 
round and round dizzily, reminding me of the ditty: 

"Swing me around again, Willie, 
Don't let my feet touch the ground ! " 

By dint of desperate work with our sweeps we got 
into the main current once more and went careering 
madly along between the black cliff walls. In some 
places we were able to find pole-bottom, in others we 
had to use our sweeps, but we generally managed to 
keep our craft reasonably straight. Our great concern 
was not to run upon a rock, of which there were many, 
for we knew that our craft was too frail to stand much 
pounding and would certainly go to pieces. Luckily the 
water was wonderfully clear, so that we could see hid- 
den dangers remarkably well; in fact, it was so clear 
that repeatedly we thought ourselves in danger from 
rocks that really were far below the surface. We could 
only travel as fast as the current, but that carried us 
along at racing speed, and, as on Crooked River, we 
again felt, as we swept over the clear depths, the sensa- 
tion of flying. The play of light on the parti-colored 
boulders that formed the bottom added greatly to the 
charm of the experience. 

Though swells repeatedly dashed over our craft, we 
experienced little sense of danger. Was not each mo- 
ment bringing us nearer the coveted pot of jam ^ The 
most ticklish moment came when we neared a long 
chute down which the river plunged at tremendous 
speed. We could see the rocks of the bottom as dis- 



244 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

tinctly as if there had been no water there — almost more 
so — and doubted whether our craft would find clearance, 
but we headed her straight in and shot through without 
a scratch. 

"This is the life!" exclaimed Joe, shaking the water 
off his boots, and we both laughed like schoolboys. 

A few miles below our starting-point the walls of the 
canyon fell away, and on the left bank we saw the 
"Irish Cabin," a deserted trapper's shack that is a 
landmark in this region. From this point on the left 
bank is a continuous low flat reaching to the Fox River 
Mountains. On the right hand the mountains continue 
farther down, and around the head of Bower Creek, a 
swift stream that empties into the Finlay a couple of 
miles below Irish Cabin, there are some fine rugged peaks 
whose appearance bears out their reputation of being 
good for both sheep and caribou. If we had had our 
canoe and supplies at the mouth of this creek I should 
have liked to examine the country for a few days, but, 
as it was, we drifted by without stopping. 

Below Bower Creek the river slowed down a bit but 
kept up a good pace everywhere and especially so in the 
ripples. The mountains on the right hand fell away, 
while the Fox River range began to loom nearer. We 
could see this range, the scene of earlier trials, for a 
long distance; its grass-covered slopes, its black peaks, 
and the golden mantle of frost-touched aspens that 
clothed its foot-hills made up a splendid spectacle. This 
range has thus far received no name, and I had come 
to call it the Joffre Range — after a very noble Frenchman. 



WE BUILD A RAFT 245 

From this point of vantage it was clear that we had 
cHnibed the range at about the worst place possible, and 
that if we had ascended the river some miles farther 
we would have had a much easier ascent and would have 
saved about a day's hard labor. Such is one of the 
penalties of penetrating a strange country without a 
guide. 

When the sun set we were still miles from the steep 
slope of Prairie Mountain and the narrow gap through 
which the Finlay breaks its way to the great Inter- 
montane Valley; we were both chilled to the bone, for 
the night was turning cold, but we were too near our 
goal to stop now; and just as the last feeble rays of 
light faintly crimsoned the white tops of the Kitchener 
Range behind us we swept through a final swift stretch 
of water and grounded our raft on the gravel-bar be- 
neath our cache. We had floated twenty-three miles 
in a little more than three hours. 

My first act was to leap ashore and run to the hid- 
ing-place of our canoe, and I felt relieved to find it safe. 
The cache, too, seemed undisturbed, and the jam was 
intact. It did not remain intact long ! 



CHAPTER XIX 
BACK TO FINLAY FORKS 

That night, full of jam and other delectable delica- 
cies, we went to bed in Joe's big tent, with plenty of 
blankets both above and beneath us, but I confess that 
I did not sleep well. A couple of pack-rats had found 
our cache, and though they had done almost no damage 
beyond lugging off a piece of dried moose meat, they 
kept running over and through the tent in a most annoy- 
ing manner. Repeatedly I lit a candle and put them to 
flight, only to have them come back and renew the per- 
formance about the time I was dozing off. These bold 
animals are a great pest to trappers, and their propen- 
sity for carrying off spoons, knives, cartridges, and 
other valuable articles, and bringing back in return 
spruce cones, sticks, and such things in exchange has 
caused them to be sometimes called "the traders of 
the North." Luckily they are not much given to gnaw- 
ing into boxes or other similar receptacles. The one we 
saw in the cabin north of the Long Canyon had seem- 
ingly made no effort to get into the grub-box; an ordi- 
nary rat would have had a hole in it and all the con- 
tents devoured or spoiled long before. Despite my vigi- 
lance, the two that disturbed us managed to nibble a 
small hole in the ridge of my balloon-silk tent, which 

was lying on top of my bed. 

246 



BACK TO FINLAY FORKS 247 

Toward noon next day we began our long river jour- 
ney, the terminus of which was Peace River Crossing, 
five hundred miles away. We found the Quadacha less 
white than when we had last seen It; evidently the freez- 
ing weather was diminishing glacial action. The FInlay 
below the junction was consequently clearer than when 
we had come up; It was also a couple of feet lower and 
the current was more moderate. The poplar and birch 
leaves had all been transformed by the Midas touch of 
frost and gave a golden tinge to the landscape. All day 
we had to fight a nasty, raw, head wind, but hour after 
hour we plied our dripping paddles, and the current 
helped us on. We made thirty miles before we camped, 
and by late the next afternoon we were once more at 
Deserter's Canyon. Two mighty loads apiece took over 
all our belongings except the canoe, and we slept that 
night at the lower end of the portage. Next morning 
we brought over the canoe, bade good-by to the now 
snow-crowned peak that stands sentinel over the can- 
yon, and by eleven o'clock reached Shorty Webber's 
cabin. Although our progress had been slower than It 
would have been If the stream had been higher, we found 
that In about two hours' time we could undo a whole 
day's labor going up. The lowness of the stream had 
one great advantage, namely, that the water was less 
rough In the bad places; as It was, we shipped the tops 
of swells two or three times, notably In making the 
approach to the landing above Deserter's Canyon. 

It was Interesting to notice how Joe's spirits Im- 
proved now that he was once more on the water. In 



248 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

the mountains he had been morose and crabbed; now 
the shores resounded once more to the strains of "Molly 
Maclntyre." Like most French Canadians, Joe feels at 
home only on the river. 

We expected to find Webber at home, but though a 
great heap of wood outside and the presence of his fur- 
niture and supplies inside the cabin bore evidence that 
he had been there, a note on the rough table informed 
us that he had returned to Fort Grahame. Generous 
Shorty ! The note told us to help ourselves to anything 
we needed, and the good fellow had set out a profuse 
supply of dried moose meat where we could not fail to 
find it. Happily we were in need of nothing except 
a spoonful of baking-powder, which we took, but we 
were none the less grateful. The little man had his 
cabin ornamented with pictures cut from magazines and 
Sunday newspapers, and he had, wonder of wonders ! a 
little phonograph and about half a dozen records. While 
we cooked and ate lunch we played them all. One of 
them was "Home, Sweet Home !" A phonograph seems 
an odd piece of furniture to find in a trapper's cabin at 
the back of beyond, but I presume that one really affords 
a great deal of company in the long winter evenings out 
there in the great snowy forest. 

We reached Fort Grahame at 5.30, stopping on the 
way thither to see the Indian graveyard on the moun- 
tainside above the fort. The Indians have bestowed 
much more care on this graveyard, the spot they have 
selected for their eternal rest, than on their usual abodes. 
Most of the graves are covered with neat "chicken-coop'* 




Indian cr.wevaed at Fort (Jrahamk 




Gib.S(.)n's place jcst ABovr. FiNi.Av Forks. 



BACK TO FINLAY FORKS 249 

structures, made of whip-sawed boards and painted 
green and white. A cross at the head of most of the 
graves indicates the nominal behef of those who rest 
beneath. The impression the spot made on me was 
sorrowful, particularly when I thought of the wildness 
of the place and the inevitable fate of the tribe who 
made it; yet I suppose the feeling was illogical. Surely 
the road to heaven is as short from that little graveyard 
on the lonely Finlay as it is from the crowded ceme- 
teries that lie within sound of the roar of mighty cities. 

Joe and Shorty Webber acted as cooks that night, 
and we all slept in Fox's cabin, the first roof I had slept 
under since leaving Prince George many weeks before. 
We remained awake far into the night, and Fox told 
us many stories of his long stay at Grahame, some of 
which I have already related. He also had for me the 
unwelcome intelligence that a Siwash husky had torn 
the hind leg off my brown bearskin. Joe was very in- 
dignant at the dog, but I suggested that the creature 
was merely acting according to his nature, and that 
perhaps the real fault lay in the man who had persisted 
in nailing the skin so low that the dog could reach it. 

In our absence Fox had made a trip to the Forks, in 
order to vote in the provincial election. Eighteen bal- 
lots, as I remember it, had been cast at that polling- 
place, which is a fairly complete measure of the white 
population in the immense Parsnip and Finlay and upper 
Peace country. The returns had been sent to Hudson's 
Hope, a hundred miles down-stream, and when Fox left 
the Forks the general result was still unknown. The 



2SO ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

Conservative candidate's election tour through the re- 
gion had borne fruit, for he had received about three- 
fourths of the votes cast at the Forks. Much more in- 
teresting to me was the news that Roumania had thrown 
aside her neutrahty and had entered the war on the 
side of civihzation. 

"Good-by and good luck!" we called to Fox and 
Shorty next morning when we had pushed out into the 
river. 

"Good-by and good luck to you!" they echoed 
back. 

I thought that both looked a bit wistful. We were 
going out into the Grand Pays once more, to the haunts 
of men, while they had before them a long and dreary 
winter remote from their kind. Fox's children were in 
some town on the coast of the Province, and this no 
doubt added to his loneliness. Shorty had hoped that 
Joe would return to keep him company in the country 
about Deserter's Canyon, and felt much disappointed 
when he learned that Joe meant to remain at Fort 
George. Now the little German would have no com- 
pany except his dog and phonograph. 

To oblige Fox we agreed to carry as far as Finlay 
Forks a fifty-pound sack of moosehide babiche for lac- 
ing snow-shoes, the babiche being destined for Fort St. 
John, where there are few moose. Beyond the Forks 
we could not promise to take it, for we had some more 
stuff of our own to take aboard there. Babiche, by the 
way, retails at from two to three dollars a pound. 

Some miles below Grahame we met Ross, the freighter. 



BACK TO FINLAY FORKS 251 

on a mission to the fort. He had come all the way 
from Summit Lake alone in his little Chestnut, and he 
had much later news of the outside world than Fox 
had been able to give us. He reported that the Rou- 
manians were making great headway against Austria, 
that both suffrage and prohibition had been carried in 
British Columbia, and that the Conservative party had 
been ingloriously routed. A few miles back he had 
seen a big bull moose walking along the shore within 
a hundred feet of him. 

It seemed bad luck, indeed, that he, who had no 
rifle, should have seen the moose, while we, who had 
three, did not. We saw no big game whatever on our 
way down the Finlay, though we did see many flocks of 
ducks, chiefly a species of black duck. I did some mis- 
erable shooting at these birds with the little rifle, and 
before reaching the Forks hit only two, when I ought 
to have killed three or four times that many. Joe was 
charitable enough to ascribe my poor success to the 
rifle, but doubtless shooting from a moving canoe at 
moving objects, a front sight the color of the water, and 
the fact that the ranges were from sixty to over a hun- 
dred yards were the main causes. However, when I 
finally gave the rifle a thorough scouring out, I did 
better, but this was after we passed the Forks. My 
failure to kill more ducks was the more regrettable be- 
cause we were having no luck fishing and the ducks were 
astonishingly fat and tender and truly delicious. 

Some miles below where we met Ross we saw the 
camp of Booth and his squaw and paused for a few 



252 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

minutes' chat. The klooch looked husky and not un- 
comely. She remained on the bank above and paid no 
heed to Joe's salutations. 

The next morning we passed at the mouth of the 
Ospica the camp of Charlie Hunter and his big family, 
and below the Omineca we met Angus Sherwood and 
his partner McKennon on their way to their trapping- 
ground up the Omineca. Sherwood, who is a State of 
Maine man and probably the most competent person 
in the whole Finlay region, was once a partner of my 
old friend, Adolf Anderson, down in the Thompson 
River country and also of another friend, Jim Beattie, 
whom I was expecting to see at Hudson's Hope. We 
had already met Sherwood with Huston's party, and 
he now told us that it was the Huston party that left 
the food in the grub-box in the cabin above the Long 
Canyon. Imagine the trapper's amusement when he 
read our note explaining and apologizing for the trade 
we had made ! 

We lunched that day on Pete Toy's celebrated bar, 
stopped for a moment to say hello to Gibson, dug some 
splendid potatoes at Joe's shack half a mile above the 
Forks, and by mid-afternoon reached Peterson's. We 
had a grand feed that night, including some excellent 
graham bread. Smith and Staggy paddled over after 
supper, and we sat up far into the night listening to old 
Peterson's stories of early days on the Parsnip. 

Peterson, I shall remark here, is a cross-grained old 
stick of oak. Naturally very kind-hearted, he has suf- 
fered many disappointments and is irascible and hot- 



BACK TO FINLAY FORKS 253 

tempered. He has quarrelled with half the dwellers on 
the border-land and has had personal conflicts with sev- 
eral of them. He now lives in a state of feud with vari- 
ous trappers and prospectors. His cabin is a veritable 
arsenal, and a loaded rifle stands beside every doorway 
and in every corner. Notwithstanding, the old man 
has many admirable qualities, and I can say, as regards 
my own feelings for him, that I hope all of his dreams 
of a rich town site on his quarter section may soon 
come true ! 



CHAPTER XX 
THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 

Henceforth the journey was to be through what 
was to me new country, for, instead of returning by way 
of the Parsnip, I had planned to float down the Peace. 
The next stage of our travels lay along that stretch of 
the Peace where the great river bursts its way through 
the mighty barrier wall of the Rockies. 

A mile or so below the Forks we came to the Finlay 
Rapid, a stretch of about half a mile where the river 
runs over a rough rock bed, creating dangerous, curling 
waves in the centre of the stream, while near the shores 
ledges and detached boulders render straightaway navi- 
gation impossible. Travelers on Peace River have 
made much of this rapid, yet it is not a very impressive 
spectacle. It is, of course, an obstacle to navigation, 
but any tyro can easily carry round it. The passage is 
usually made by the south side, but in the existing low 
stage of water Joe elected to go by the north side. By 
use of a pole, the tracking-rope, a little wading and lift- 
ing and shoving, we got the canoe and load through 
without portaging anything except my camera and big 
rifle. 

As we had made a late start, we lunched a few miles 
below the rapid on the beach at Poker Flats. On the 
bank above stood a cabin in which two miners had died 

2S4 



THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 255 

of scurvy in the winter of 1898-9. They were buried 
in the dirt floor by their surviving partner, who later 
managed to make his way to Edmonton, where he died 
in a hospital. In his last hours he is said to have told 
of an immensely rich bar, yielding a hundred and 
twenty-five dollars to the pan, and of a great hoard of 
buried gold. More than once travelers unacquainted 
with the story of the cabin have slept in it, but no one 
who knows the meaning of the depression in the floor 
has ever slept there no matter how the blizzard may 
roar. To Poker Flats the north shore is low and cov- 
ered with forest, but we were now entering the moun- 
tains, running between great, jagged peaks. When we 
came to Wicked River, a swift stream that does not be- 
lie its name, we noticed a cabin belonging to a certain 
"Slim" Cowart, a friend of Joe's. "Slim" had left it 
to go out and look after some lots he owned in Prince 
George. 

"Do you see that little beach yonder.?" said Joe, 
pointing up the Wicked. "It was there I shot my griz- 
zly last spring. I had been out hunting all day and 
had seen nothing at afl. When I was almost back to 
camp I saw a big silvertip lumbering along right across 
from me. He wasn't forty yards from me, and I took 
good aim at his head. When I pulled trigger he sunk 
right down and died quietly, without a row of any sort. 
The skin was a prime one, and I sold it to Huston for 
forty-five dollars." 

Just below Wicked River we came upon a flock of 
black ducks, and my first bullet killed one of them. All 



2S6 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

of them were full grown and well able to fly, but they 
were very fat and about half of them elected to dive 
instead of taking wing. As a result, I was able to shoot 
two more before the survivors discovered that the air 
was a safer element than the water. As I continued to 
have success farther down, it was evident that either I 
had found my shooting eye again, or else the scouring I 
had given the little rifle had been helpful. Unfortu- 
nately, soon after I began to get results the cartridges 
gave out. 

A little beyond the mouth of Wicked River Mount 
Selwyn towers up on the south shore. This peak rises 
right up from the water's edge, and its northern face is 
almost sheer. In reality there are three peaks, the 
southernmost, which is not visible from the river, being 
the tallest — about 7,500 feet. Selwyn is known all 
through the north as "the Mountain of Gold." From 
reading previous descriptions of it I had infeired that 
the whole mountain is a mighty mass of gold quartz, 
but this is a mistake. It is only a sort of foot-hill or 
buttress on the up-stream side that is composed of 
quartz, the rest being seemingly a sort of hard slate. 
Whether the quartz runs under the mountain or the 
slate from the mountain runs under the quartz I do 
not know, but from the river the line of contact looks 
as if the latter were the case. The quartz is said to 
reappear farther back. At any rate, millions of tons of 
it are visible from the river, and assays are said to run 
from three dollars a ton up to about eighteen. Thus 
far the cost of transporting supplies has been too great 




Reproduced from a photograph by M. B. Huston. 

Slim Cowart's cabix near Mt. Sklwyx. 




Reproduced from a photofrraph by M. B. Huston. 

Rock Arch ox \\'irKi:D Ri\"f.r. 



THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 257 

for any serious work to be done, but the ore Is all staked 
out and enough blasting done to comply with the min- 
ing laws. When we passed no one w?'^. living there, 
there being only one permanently occupied cabin be- 
tween the Forks and the Great Canyon. The advent 
of a railroad may change all this, and steamers will 
probably be put on the river. There is said to be plenty 
of coal along the Carbon River, not far above the Can- 
yon, and a few years may witness some busy scenes 
about Selwyn. The great Treadwell mine on the west 
coast, said to be one of the best paying propositions in 
America, is composed of low-grade ore, no richer, I 
have been told, than that of Selwyn Is supposed to 
be. 

Mica, with large, clear sheets and fine cleavage, Is 
also said to exist In the neighborhood of Selwyn, but 
we did not see it. Nearer the Canyon there are large 
deposits of coal, and along one stretch of the river, for 
several hundred yards, we got strong whiffs of sulphur 
or natural gas, I could not be sure which. 

For thirty miles or so beyond Mount Selwyn the 
river flows right through the main chain of the Rockies, 
and the scenery on either hand is grand and gloomy 
beyond description The peaks are extremely steep and 
ragged, and many of them rise a mile right up from the 
river. In the face of a great cliff, thousands of feet up, 
we noticed the black mouth of a mighty cave. I am 
convinced that in time the ride through this gorge will 
be widely known as one of the great scenic wonders of 
America. Just let some enterprising company get a 



2S8 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

railroad built through it, and then you will hear of it ! 
Even after so many weeks of wandering among moun- 
tains I was strongly impressed by the spectacle. With 
the exception of the Liard, the Peace is the only river 
that breaks its way through the Rocky Mountains, 
either in Canada or the United States. Unfortunately, 
we passed through amid a storm of rain and snow from 
low-lying, wind-driven clouds that rendered picture-tak- 
ing impracticable until we reached the eastern limits of 
the high mountains next day. 

About mid-afternoon, the storm of rain beating in 
our faces — it was snowing, of course, on the mountain 
tops — became so insupportable that we camped at the 
mouth of Barnard Creek, a stream that enters from 
the north. While Joe was cooking supper I took my 
rod and rifle and made my way down to the mouth of 
the creek — or rather mouths, for there were several 
outlets through the gravel-bar — in the hope of catching 
some arctics. I had no luck whatever, but on my way 
back to camp I happened to glance up at a high cut 
bank opposite and saw a black bear eating red willow 
berries in a little plot of thicket that had slid forty or 
fifty feet down from the top. 

I at once began to consider ways and means of get- 
ting a good shot, but the prospect was not encouraging. 
The river at that point was fully three hundred yards 
wide, while the bluff where the bear was feeding ran up 
five or six hundred feet and, of course, sloped back 
somewhat. On the leeward side the bluff extended along 
the river for nearly a mile, and to make such a detour 



THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 259 

would have required an hour or more, which was not to 
be thought of, for dusk was already falling. As a bear's 
eyesight is rather bad, it would probably have been 
better to have boldly crossed in the canoe to the foot 
of the bluff, but there was a chance that the bear might 
come down to the river to drink, so I merely sat and 
waited. Meanwhile it was growing dark fast, and by 
and by the bear moved upward, so that it appeared 
that he had no idea of descending to the water. It was 
clear that I would either have to take a long shot or 
else let bruin entirely alone. It was already so dark 
that I could not see the sights at all well, but I raised 
the rear one to four hundred yards, and, with a prayerful 
hope rather than any real expectation, took as good aim 
as the light would permit and pulled the trigger. For 
two or three minutes the bear hid in the bushes, then 
began to climb the bank. I fired twice more at him 
on the move. When he neared the top he slipped and 
fell back, and for a moment I thought he was disabled, 
but he recovered himself, took a less precipitous course, 
reached the top, and disappeared in the thick spruce 
woods on top. Whether or not I hit him I shall never 
know. I sincerely hope not. 

The episode well illustrates one of the provoking 
features of big-game hunting: namely, one sees much 
game at times when the failing light renders it impossi- 
ble for the hunter to make a careful stalk. 

There are said to be a good many bears, both black 
bears and grizzlies, along this section of the river. The 
spring before Joe and Slim Cowart made a trip up one 



26o ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

of the small streams that flow in from the north and 
saw the track of a perfectly enormous grizzly. 

"It was so big that it made me feel shivery all over 
and look around me," declared Joe. 

He thinks it may have been this bear that "killed 
and ate two Siwash" in this region at some time — in- 
determinate — in the past. He admitted, however, that 
the Siwash may have been mythical, the products of 
some trapper's fertile imagination. 

Toward noon next day we neared a cut bank on the 
north shore, and Joe, after standing up for a better look, 
announced: 

"Yonder is Parle Pas Rapids." 

There was no sign of rapids until we were close up, 
for the water drops enough to hide the white breakers 
below, while a boatman going down-stream hears very 
little noise, particularly if the wind happens to be down- 
stream. It is this latter characteristic that has given 
the place its name, " Rapide qui ne parle pas,'' that is, 
"Rapid that does not speak." A couple of years before 
this lack of warning had tragic consequences for two 
greenhorns who were descending the river. They failed 
to keep a good watch ahead, and before they knew it 
were in the grip of the rapids. Their canoe was upset 
and one of them was drowned. The other managed to 
reach Hudson's Hope in a dazed condition. 

The Parle Pas Rapids are about a thousand feet 
long and are caused by a nearly horizontal bed of stone 
outcropping in the river bed, over which the water flows 
in most places in a thin sheet. Properly managed, the 



THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 261 

descent presents no great difficulties; by using the rope 
and by doing a little wading and shoving in shallow 
places we got the canoe past along the north shore, 
without taking anything except a few of our most valu- 
able articles out of it. 

These rapids mark the eastern limit of the main 
range of the Rockies, as do the Finlay Rapids their west- 
ern limit. Considering the immense magnitude of the 
break, it is astonishing that the river's course should be 
so smooth and level. The current, to be sure, is lively, 
averaging perhaps four miles an hour, but these two 
rapids are the only noteworthy instances of rough water, 
and even they are hardly awe-inspiring. The fact that 
Peace River has worn down its bed until it is so com- 
paratively level would seem to indicate that the drain- 
age system and the mountains through which it breaks 
are very, very old. 

We lunched that day at the mouth of the Ottertail, 
a fine, large mountain stream that flows into the Peace 
by three outlets. The sun had now come out and the 
weather was warmer, and I managed to catch three fine 
arctics and two sapi at this place, one of the latter being 
a four-pound fish. At the mouth of a creek farther 
down I also landed another sapi. For some time we 
had been having no luck angling, and these fish furnished 
a welcome change from our usual diet. Our ill luck had 
no doubt been partly due to cold, cloudy weather, but 
in part probably to the fact that most of the arctics had 
gone up the small streams to spawn. In females of both 
the arctics and the sapi we found eggs. 



262 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

High, rounded hills had now replaced the ragged 
mountains, and from a little below the Ottertail the 
hills on the north shore were for the most part practi- 
cally bare of trees and covered with grass. Those on 
the south shore continued to be more or less timbered 
with spruce, pine, and poplar, though few of the trees 
are big enough for lumber, being low and limby. Gen- 
erally speaking, this condition of timber on the south 
shore and grass on the north shore continues for hun- 
dreds of miles, at least as far as to Peace River Crossing. 
I have met no one who could give a thoroughly satis- 
factory explanation of the phenomenon. Mr. Brenot, a 
Dominion land-surveyor whom I met below Hudson's 
Hope, suggests that possibly it is because of the fact 
that for generations voyageurs have camped on the 
northern bank, this being the sunny side, with the result 
that more forest fires have occurred on this bank, thus 
denuding the country of timber and permitting grass 
to grow. 

In many places the hills rise from the river in a suc- 
cession of terraces, some of which look very much like 
long railway cuts or embankments along the hillsides. 
The terraces probably mark old river-levels. 

In the spring and early fall the bare hillsides are a 
great resort for bears. On one hill that Joe pointed out 
to me a party of white men going down the preceding 
spring had seen seven or eight grizzlies scattered about, 
feeding on grass and roots. Two of the men landed and 
tried to get a shot, but a party of Beaver Indians, whose 
presence they did not suspect, were nearer and managed 



THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 263 

to kill five bears before the white men could come up. 
This story seems a bit incredible, but Joe claimed to 
have been present, and it was vouched for by several 
other persons at Hudson's Hope. 

We slept that night in a comfortable cabin at Bren- 
nan's Flat, the cabin being the property of a man who 
located there some years before and gave his name to 
the spot. Brennan was absent, as were his two partners, 
Wood and Taylor, but we made ourselves at home and 
had a big feast that night on two of our ducks, and on 
some of our trout next morning. The flat is noteworthy 
for two things : there are mule-deer in the country behind 
it, while some of the gravel-bars along it contain gold. 
We saw two miniature Ferris wheels rigged up on rafts 
alongside two of these bars, the idea being that the cur- 
rent should turn the wheels and lift water to wash the 
gravel thrown into the sluices on the bar. Only a little 
work had been done, and we later learned that owing 
to the low stage of the river the current was not strong 
enough to turn the wheels. 

Despite bitter cold and a dense fog we were off next 
morning before sunrise, being anxious to make the Can- 
yon and cross the portage that day. Some miles below 
Brennan's we found a survey outfit shivering around 
their fires waiting for breakfast, and we stopped a few 
minutes that Joe might secure from the head surveyor 
a signature to a paper connected in some way with 
Joe's pre-emption at the Forks. The party had been 
working around the Forks when we started up Finlay 
River, and I had already met several of the men. 



264 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

Farther down the river we passed another party of 
men in camp upon the bank. One of them recognized 
my helper and shouted: 

"Hello, Joe!" 

"Who are you ?" asked Joe in return. 

Some name was shouted back, but Joe is a little deaf, 
while I, being unfamiliar with the name, could not quite 
catch it. Two or three times we repeated the question 
with the same result. Finally I managed to get the 
words : 

"Used to be bartender at Fort George !" 

When I imparted this information to my steersman 
he at once understood that it was a certain crippled 
little French Canadian who had recently ceased dispens- 
ing liquids over the bar and had come up to this region 
with his wife to trap. 

At half-past nine, having already made twenty miles 
that morning, we came in sight at last of the famous 
Peace River Canyon. The stream is swifter than usual 
far above the entrance to the gorge, and though one 
hears much talk of the danger of being carried down, 
only a drunken man or a half-witted fool would ever 
disregard the abundant warnings the stream gives of 
danger. There were two or three canoes and boats, one 
of them old and rotten, on the beach or on the bank 
above, and Jim Beattie, who has charge of the portage, 
has a good cabin and a stable here. No one occupies 
the place permanently, however, and the traveler who 
reaches this end of the portage must walk overland four- 
teen miles to Hudson's Hope in order to procure a 




The entrance to Peace Ri\er Canyon. 




Bea\er tki'EE at HiDsox's Hoi'i;. 



THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 265 

wagon. Across the river from the head of the portage 
there is a coal exposure, into which some one has dug a 
short shaft. 

I was exceedingly anxious to reach the Hope that 
day, for I expected mail there from the outside, so I 
planned to leave Joe in charge of the outfit and walk 
over by myself. First, however, I took my camera and 
set off down-stream for a look at the head of the canyon. 
From the portage the distance is about a mile along a 
boulder beach. In old days the portage began only a 
little distance above the canyon, and at different times 
the Hudson's Bay Company, "Twelve-foot" Davis, 
and perhaps other fur-traders had small posts here for 
the Indian trade. 

The river contracts greatly before entering between 
the rock walls, and for over twenty miles it is a foaming 
torrent of turbulent water, the total descent in that 
distance being about 243 feet. So far as known there 
is no very high fall, the river flowing in a series of rapids 
and chutes between perpendicular and often overhang- 
ing walls of sandstone. No one has ever explored the 
whole of the canyon, and the task would be very diffi- 
cult, though it might possibly be done when the stream 
is frozen, a feat that Jim Beattie tells me he contem- 
plates doing some day. Tradition says that two par- 
ties — one composed of two Chinamen, the other headed 
by a missionary — ignorantly attempted to run the can- 
yon in years gone by. Of course, nothing more was 
ever heard of them. A British Columbia surveyor a few 
years ago tried the experiment of sending through a 



266 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

very heavy, strong boat, well braced. Only a small, 
battered piece was observed to float out at the lower 
end ! 

The time will probably come when this canyon will 
be harnessed to great turbines. The power that could 
thus be created would exceed that of several Niagaras. 
A quarter of a century from now the whole of the can- 
yon may be lined with great manufacturing establish- 
ments. Stranger things have happened. Would that I 
had all that power within twenty miles of Chicago or 
New York ! 

I saw the canyon at a most unfavorable time to be 
impressed by it. As I have said before, the summer 
had been an exceedingly dry one on the headwaters of 
Peace River, and the stream was unusually low. In 
times of high water the river rises completely over the 
rocks shown on the right of the illustration. I noticed, 
by the way, two or three deep "pot holes" on these 
rocks. 

I returned to the canoe about eleven o'clock, ate a 
light lunch, stuck a couple of pieces of chocolate and a 
duck sandwich in my pocket, picked up my rifle, and set 
out on my fourteen-mile hike for Hudson's Hope. We 
had heard a rumor up the river that Beattie was ex- 
pected to visit the survey camp, and when I reached 
the top of the bench above the river I saw fresh wagon 
tracks that had come nearly to the end of the portage 
and then had turned up-stream along a newly opened 
trail. I jumped to the conclusion that the tracks must 
have been made by Beattie, but I knew that I could 



THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 267 

not catch up with him and that he would learn from 
the surveyors of our having come down and would 
return; as I was extremely eager to get my mail and 
learn how things were at home, I decided to keep on to 
the Hope. 

The way first led upward for many hundred feet, but 
the trail was open and dry and just hard enough for 
good walking, while I was wearing a pair of light shoes, 
had no pack, the poplar and jack-pine woods along the 
way were delightfully open, the weather was fine, and 
I found the walk a real pleasure. As I hurried along, I 
had a consciousness that I was following a historic high- 
way. For a century this has been the path followed by 
Indians and trappers on their way to and from the 
mountains. Mackenzie had trodden it, and McLeod 
and Finlay and Butler and Pike and other celebrities 
whose names are associated with the "great lone land" 
of the far north. To the left rose a high rocky hill that 
earlier travelers, familiar with bufi^alo, called ''the 
Bull's Head," and the resemblance was easy to be seen. 
On some later maps the name is given to a mountain 
across the Peace, but this is due to a surveyor's mistake. 

After walking for two hours I came to a little creek, 
the first water I had seen, and stopped a few minutes 
to drink and to eat my duck sandwich and chocolate. 
On the shore of this creek I saw a track which I first 
thought had been made by a bear, but closer inspection 
showed that it was the footprint of a big timber-wolf. 
Evidently the country was not yet so very much civi- 
lized, after all. 



268 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

During the fourth hour I walked a long distance 
through stretches of tall, slender poplars that had been 
killed by fire a few years before. There had been a 
heavy wind the night before, and scores of the poplars 
had fallen across the trail. People travelling along the 
portage with horses or wagons carry axes with which 
to clear such windfalls out of the way. 

Finally the trail ran out upon the edge of a bluff 
whence, far below me, I could descry the deep gorge of 
the Peace once more, and the dozen or so cabins that I 
knew must constitute the famous settlement of Hud- 
son's Hope. Before one of the most considerable of 
these structures rose the inevitable flagpole that marks 
a Hudson's Bay post. 

It did not take me long to reach the settlement and 
to claim my mail at the post-office, which I found was 
located at the Hudson's Bay store. Then from the gov- 
ernment telegraph-operator, Mr. Ralph M. Osborne, I 
learned that I had read the signs rightly and that Beattie 
had gone up the river. Osborne directed me to hunt 
up a Mr. MacEwan, who has a place next to Beattie's 
and in his absence looks after Beattie's interests, and 
by him I was told that there were no other horses avail- 
able to haul over our stuff. Osborne and MacEwan 
were confident that Beattie would hear of our arrival 
and would return, so I decided to remain at the Hope 
until this happened. MacEwan, who knew that Jim 
was expecting me, gave me the key to Jim's cabin, and, 
as I had known the owner years before, I had no hesita- 
tion about making myself at home. 



THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 269 

Beattie's and MacEwan's cabins stand upon the 
edge of the bluff overlooking the Peace and command a 
noble prospect of water, valley, and hills. The valley, 
or rather gorge, of the Peace is here several hundred 
feet in depth. A little way down the hill from the cabins 
a splendid spring bubbles out and furnishes an abun- 
dant supply of the finest water. On a flat across the 
river and some distance farther down-stream lies the 
old site of Hudson's Hope, and it is worth remarking 
that on most maps the post is still placed on the south 
side of the Peace. 

Both MacEwan and Osborne are Americans. The 
former was for years a miner in the Western States, and 
he enjoys the distinction of having resided longer at 
the Hope than any other white inhabitant, though he 
had been there only five years. Osborne is a native, as 
I recall it, of Montana. He is a young man, still in his 
twenties, but he started out early, was for several years 
a cowman, then drifted northward into Canada; lived 
for a time at Peace River Crossing, where he managed 
to make a stake in real estate, and now for a bit has 
been working as telegraph-operator at this distant set- 
tlement. He was good enough to invite me to eat with 
him until Beattie arrived, and I revelled in real milk 
and cream, garden-stuff, and other delicacies. 

By noon next day I knew most of the prominent 
citizens of the Hope, had seen the three belles of the 
settlement — daughters of a French-Canadian pre-emp- 
tioner; in fact, was beginning to feel like an old-time 
resident. These girls, by the way, were the first white 



270 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

women that I had beheld since leaving Hansard, for 
though there is a white woman at McLeod, I did not 
happen to see her. The winter before there had been 
two white women at the Forks, but the loneHness had 
proved too much for them. The Hope was much elated 
over the fact that a day or two before my arrival a tiny 
white stranger had come to town, the mother of it being 
a Mrs. Bodiger, one of the women who had spent the 
preceding winter at the Forks. 

Like practically every other place in Canada, Hud- 
son's Hope has had its real-estate boom, but things were 
now properly described as "very quiet." I believe that 
the boom did not reach the stage of platting land into 
town lots, but several men came thither to file on land 
in anticipation of realizing big returns. Hard times in 
the Dominion had caused some of the settlers to become 
discouraged, and the population at the Hope was smaller 
than it had been two or three years before. 

From what I heard it appeared that about half the 
residents had just departed by way of the Crossing and 
Edmonton for Kamloops — I think that was the town; 
at least the round trip was about two thousand miles — 
to testify at the trial of a fellow citizen who was accused 
of rape. I had heard echoes of this case ever since 
reaching Prince George, and as the affair had peculiar 
complications and the man was widely known, the 
population of the Peace River country seemed much 
divided over it. Among those who had gone out to 
the trial as a witness was "The Sandbar Queen," who 
after a lurid career along the Eraser had transferred her 



THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 271 

activities to Peace River and the Hope, where she had 
become the proprietress of a shack bearing the sign 
''restaurant." Being a lady with a trace of "color,'* 
she occupied her spare time in doing washing for the 
bachelors of the burg. 

Another character of the region whom I did not 
have the good luck to meet was a certain "Skookum" 
Black, though Black is not his real name. 

"There are three liars in British Columbia," said one 
of my acquaintances at the Hope. "One of them is a 
certain man at Fort St. John, and the other two are 
Skookum Black of Moberly Lake. Skookum a few 
years ago met a lady who was travelling in the Macken- 
zie-Peace country, getting material for a book she later 
published, and he told her some wild yarns about the 
region and its citizens. One thing she wrote down on 
his say-so was that forty miles is considered a fair day 
by Peace River trappers. Now I once passed three of 
Skookum's night camps in half a day, so it must be that 
he was speaking of the travelling powers of other trap- 
pers than himself." 

At noon of the day after my own arrival at the 
Hope I was rejoiced to see Joe and Beattie driving in 
with the canoe and the rest of the outfit. It was a great 
pleasure to shake Beattie by the hand, for six years 
before I had ridden for a couple of days with him on 
the Embarras trail southwest of Edson, and I had cor- 
responded with him since. He is an Englishman by 
birth, but he came out to Saskatchewan as a boy, and 
when I met him before he was working as a professional 



272 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

hunter for the Pacific Pass Coal Company. He had had 
some remarkable experiences the previous spring catch- 
ing wild horses in the Yellowhead Pass region, and was 
then riding a black outlaw stallion that he had roped. 
Later he trapped in the Thompson River country with 
another friend of mine, Adolf Anderson, then caught 
the gold fever and went to the Omineca country with 
Angus Sherwood, the Teare brothers, and several more, 
lost much money and found no dust, so settled down at 
the Hope to tend portage. 

After shaking hands with Jim I made another valued 
acquaintance in the person of his little black terrier. Nig. 
Nig is one of those splendid doggy little dogs who make 
friends with every one and likes to spring up into your 
lap for a quiet nap. Although he weighs only eleven 
pounds, the bears have to look out when he is around; 
last spring he cornered a big black fellow and kept him 
busy until Beattie got in a death shot. Strange as it 
may seem, two of these little dogs make an ideal com- 
bination for hunting bears. While bruin is chasing one, 
the other springs in, gives a nip, dodges away, and keeps 
the bear's attention until the other dog can repeat the 
performance. 

One heard remarkable stories of the number of bears 
that are killed by the Indians. Listening to such stories, 
one is likely to form an altogether erroneous notion 
about the number of bears, and particularly of grizzlies. 
In reality, seeing and killing a grizzly in any country is 
largely a matter of chance. A man may go out for a 
short hunt or he may simply be travelling with no in- 



THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 273 

tentlon of hunting, and be lucky — or unlucky — enough 
to see several of these animals. On the other hand, he 
may live in the country for years and have no luck. 
Jim Beattie has been hunting and trapping in the Cana- 
dian Rockies for ten or a dozen years, and has killed 
many bears, but not a single silvertip. A squawman 
named Gregory — from Pendleton, Indiana, originally — 
has been trapping along the Peace for five years and has 
never even seen one. Neither has Brady, a trapper and 
trader who has a place away up on the wilds of Halfway 
River. 

Each year, however, a few grizzly hides are brought 
into Hudson's Hope. Osborne has a fine, large skin, 
with splendid claws, which he bought of an Indian for 
five dollars ! Last spring Beattie bought a perfectly 
enormous skin from another Indian, and I saw it in the 
Hudson's Bay store. Unfortunately the claws were 
not kept on, and this greatly detracts from the value 
and interest. It is very diflficult to get the Indians to 
leave the claws on a skin, and it is said that the reason 
is their fondness for bear paws and bear-paw soup ! 

These Indians are of the Beaver tribe, and nearly 
every account, from that of the earliest explorers down 
to the present day, makes them out a low-down, de- 
graded set. They are blear-eyed, polygamous, inces- 
tuous, rotten with tuberculosis, scrofula, and syphilis, 
and are fast dying out. I saw only one man of the 
whole lot who looked healthy, and he was a mere boy 
who had been working with a pack-train for Hudson's 
Bay. This fellow came to Beattie's cabin one evening. 



274 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

Now few of these Indians, despite their long association 
with white traders, can speak English at all well, and 
they have a most confusing habit, when questioned, of 
saying, "Yes, no. Yes, no." I asked this young In- 
dian a number of questions, and almost invariably he 
responded, "Yes, no." Finally I said to him: 

"You kill game last winter?" 

This he understood, for he replied: "One leetlo 
moose." 

The Beavers, like the Sikannis up the Finlay, are 
meat-eaters, but though they often go hungry, they have 
no idea of "conservation." They will kill game as 
long as they have a chance. Some time ago a bunch 
of them located a lot of caribou somewhere in the Mo- 
berly Lake country. They killed and killed until their 
cartridges gave out; then, though they had no use for 
half the animals already slain, they sent to the Hope 
after more ammunition ! 

In the old days the Hudson's Bay Company em- 
ployed the squaws to pack goods across the portage. 
It is said — probably with some exaggeration — that a 
squaw would pick up a hundred-pound pack and march 
the whole fourteen miles without once setting it down. 
They are still used as beasts of burden by their male 
lords and masters. I saw one band come into the Hope 
from a trip in the bush. Dashing ahead on ponies came 
several bucks of various ages carrying nothing except 
their rifles; behind plodded a long line of squaws bent 
under heavy burdens. 

Once in a while there is a squaw who has spunk 



THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 275 

enough to reverse the matter of lordship. I heard of 
one, a big, fat, "miUtant" two- hundred-pounder, whose 
husband was a weazened little buck about half her size. 
For years she had bossed the teepee, and his life was 
not a pleasant one, for when he became restive under 
her dominion, she proceeded to "beat up on him'* in 
most approved fashion. A winter or so before, while the 
pair were plodding along a snowy trail on snowshoes, 
he rose in revolt, was lucky enough to knock her into a 
drift by a lucky blow with a club, and then proceeded 
to belabor her on the head until he thought he had fin- 
ished her. When he reached the camp of some other 
Indians a few miles farther on, he swelled up with pride 
and announced: 

"Me kill squaw." ' 

The statement aroused more curiosity than indig- 
nation. Later some of the Indians happened to pass 
that way and discovered that the squaw, not quite so 
dead as her mate supposed, was sitting up in the snow, 
and ultimately she managed to drag herself into camp. 
But the days of her proud pre-eminence were past for- 
ever. Since then she has carried the pack like the rest 
of her sisters. 

The Beavers are very averse to having their pictures 
taken, having got the notion that it is liable to bring 
death or bad luck. Osborne and I strolled out one 
afternoon through a jack-pine grove where a number of 
families were encamped, but whenever I- trained the 
camera in the direction of a group they dived into their 
tepees like prairie-dogs into their holes. 



276 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

On a high hill above the Hope the Indians have a 
pole that bears a gayly painted carving of a bird that 
would seem to be a sort of hybrid between a grouse and 
a rooster. 

"What is that ?" I asked Osborne as we were return- 
ing from the village. 

"The Indians claim that whenever a stranger ap- 
proaches the village this bird utters a cry that gives 
them warning/' he replied. 

Like the music of the spheres, the bird's cry evidently 
can be heard only by certain gifted ears, to wit, those 
of the Siwash. 

A few trappers in the country have married Beaver 
squaws. One such trapper that I met had formerly 
been an American soldier in the Philippines. His first 
venture into Indian matrimony had not turned out well, 
for his squaw had eloped with an Indian. The white 
man had then taken another chance in the matrimonial 
lottery, and rumor ran that the same Indian was now 
making overtures — some said with success — to squaw 
number two. This gay red Lothario was hardly beau- 
tiful; he had scrofula so badly that the white men said 
that his head would fall off if he were to remove the rag 
he kept tied round his neck; but he seemed to have a 
winning way with the ladies. He defended his efforts 
to steal wife number two by declaring that she really 
belonged to him, as he had bought a calico dress for her 
before she was married. 

At Hudson's Hope and other places along my route 
I found the bachelors talking and joking a great deal 



THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 277 

about "war widows." One jolly old trapper ventured 
the opinion that even as ugly a man as he ought to be 
able to get a wife now. I presume that a good many 
English women who have lost their mates or prospective 
mates will go to Canada in the next few years; perhaps 
even some of them will be sent there, as single women 
were sent out to Jamestown in Colonial times. What 
adjustments in methods of living a London lass trans- 
ferred to the banks of Peace River would have to make ! 

I do not wonder at the fact that now and then a 
trapper or prospector tires of domestic duties and longs 
for a mate to attend to them. When a trapper is a 
good cook, as many of them are, it is not so bad, but 
those who are not lead a miserable existence. One 
hears amusing stories of the culinary expedients of 
some of the denizens of the region. A certain Scotsman 
has porridge three times a day, while an old Yankee, of 
cast-iron stomach, cooks hot cakes for every meal. 

I had expected as soon as Joe and the canoe arrived 
over the portage to set out for the Crossing, but Beattie 
was anxious to become the owner of the canoe, while I 
wished, if possible, to reach the Crossing the following 
Tuesday, the date one of the semiweekly trains would 
leave for Edmonton. A big gasolene-boat was on its 
way up the river, and it was represented to me that this 
boat would be sure to get me to the Crossing in time for 
the train. As we had now reached the telegraph-line 
and civilization, I regarded my trip as practically over, 
and saw no reason for making the monotonous trip 
down the Peace by canoe. Therefore I sold Jim the 



278 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

canoe and settled down at his cabin to wait for the 
boat. 

It was with real regret that I parted from the Httle 
craft. She had served us well, and was a credit to her 
builders. Only once had she sprung a leak and that a 
tiny one, due to rough usage in hauling her over some 
jagged rocks above Deserter's Canyon; a little pitch had 
remedied it. Some of the paint was scraped off her bot- 
tom, but her timbers were sound and stanch, and a 
coat of varnish would make her as good as new. 

As the boat did not arrive for two days, I had time 
to visit with Beattie and to learn more about the Hope. 
One afternoon Osborne and I rode out on horseback to 
what is known as "The Flat," where a number of home- 
steaders have located, though few are now living there. 
The land of this section of British Columbia — a great 
mass of 3,500,000 acres known as "the Peace River 
Block" — is still controlled by the Dominion government, 
and the word "homestead" is used here instead of 
"pre-emption," as in the rest of the Province. 

In this and practically every other section of Peace 
River, as well as much farther south, potatoes had been 
badly injured, and oats and wheat totally ruined, except 
for the straw, by a heavy August frost. I saw heads of 
wheat that from a distance looked well, yet that con- 
tained not the sign of a kernel. I have little doubt 
that settlers on the high prairie will always be more or 
less troubled by frost. The best land along Peace River 
is that which is down in the deep valley of the river. 
This valley is often seven or eight hundred feet below 



THE MIGHTY PEACE RIVER 279 

the level of the plateau above, and the warmth of the 
water saves crops on the river flats from frosts that ruin 
crops on the land above. 

On the ride back, from the high ground above the 
Hope, we got a superb view of some of the eastern 
Rockies. From summit to base they were now covered 
with a mantle of snow, and they loomed up almost ghost- 
like in the clear evening air. 

As I gazed a feeling of longing to wander once more 
among those delectable peaks filled my heart, and I 
wondered, with a strange clutching at my throat, if I 
would ever see them again. 



CHAPTER XXI 
THE END OF IT 

The gasolene-boat reached Hudson's Hope at ten 
o'clock on Sunday morning, but it did not set out on 
the return trip until Monday. To avoid the necessity 
of early rising, most of the half-dozen passengers, Lavoie 
and I included, went aboard on Sunday evening. The 
boat, though big enough to have a pilot-house, was not 
equipped to carry passengers; in fact, she transported 
most of her freight in a big scow that was pushed ahead 
of her. I was lucky enough to get a mattress, and with 
my own blankets made myself a comfortable bed down 
in the shaft-house, while Joe took a job as cook and, of 
course, had the cook's bunk. 

The boat was run by four men: The captain, who 
was an old Mississippi River man and who showed much 
interest when I told him that I had once taken "the old 
route to Dixie"; a mate, who had worked for a time on 
the Yukon; a half-breed pilot, and the engineer. All 
were new at the job of operating a gasolene-boat. Once 
a big blaze leaped up in the engine-room, whereupon 
the captain was about to attempt to put it out with a 
bucket of water when Joe, who knew better, fortunately 
stopped him. 

The river looked much the same as above the Can- 
yon, being from a quarter to half a mile wide, with a 

280 



THE END OF IT 281 

current of perhaps five miles an hour. There were a 
good many low Islands, evidently formed by sand, gravel, 
and silt collecting behind log-jams. It is said that many 
of the bars show color of gold, but too fine to be remu- 
nerative to hand-labor, though it is thought that steam- 
dredging may some day prove profitable. 

As we were running past a gravel-bar on the north 
shore, some of us happened to notice a large animal, 
brindled above, with blackish belly and legs, standing 
at the water's edge. 

"Look at that Indian dog!" said some one up in 
the pilot-house. 

The creature did indeed resemble a dog; in reality it 
was not a dog at all, but a black wolf (Cams griseus) and 
a big one. I had noticed many tracks of this animal in 
the course of the trip, but this was the first time I had 
actually seen the beast itself. It seemed strange that 
when I did so it should be from the deck of a noisy river- 
boat ! Although the wolf was hardly more than a hun- 
dred yards away, he watched us quite casually, and 
only after we were past did he turn and trot back into 
the bush. If I had had my rifle ready I could have 
made the occasion pretty interesting for the beast, but 
I was expecting nothing of the sort, and the weapon 
was quietly reposing in its case. 

Our sight of this animal tended to confirm word 
brought into the Hope by the Indians that the wolves 
were moving down from the Nelson River country, the 
explanation being that the "rabbits" — that is the 
northern varying hares {Lepus aviericanus macfarlani) — ■ 



282 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

were nearly all dead. Of the latter fact there was no 
doubt. Prairie-chickens, only a year or two before ex- 
tremely plentiful, were also said to be very scarce. The 
rabbits had become infected with a strange disease which 
about every seven years sweeps them off in multitudes. 
Just what this disease is naturalists are not agreed. 
Roderick MacFarlane, long a chief factor of the Great 
Company and a close student of natural history, asserts 
that it is an affection of the head and throat. Whatever 
it is, it would seem to be a provision of nature designed 
to prevent the rabbits from simply overrunning the 
country, for they multiply so rapidly that, if not checked 
in some way, they would soon not have standing-room. 
Scarcity of rabbits is a serious matter to the people who 
inhabit these northern regions. The Indians largely 
depend on rabbits snared by the squaws and children 
to get them through periods of scarcity of "big meat," 
and not infrequently white trappers also are reduced to 
catching and eating the humble bunnies. Furthermore, 
several animals, including the lynx, marten, coyote, and 
wolf, live mostly or in part on rabbits. When the rab- 
bit crop is short the lynx and marten crops are short, 
also; many lynx, in fact, starve to death in such times. 
The big wolves also hunt much larger game. They 
hang around caribou herds and take toll of calves, young 
animals, the sick and crippled, and now and then of the 
sound and strong. Deer, mountain-sheep, mountain- 
goats, and even moose fall prey to them. MacFarlane 
relates that once while travelling on the ice between 
Forts Liard and Nelson his party came upon a patch of 



THE END OF IT 283 

hard-packed bloody snow where a pack of wolves had 
set upon and pulled down a big bull moose and had 
eaten everything except the larger bones. The bull 
had evidently fought hard for his life, for near by they 
found and killed a wolf that had one of its hind legs 
shattered. 

The people of the Peace River country lose many 
horses and cows in winter through the depredations of 
wolves. Around St. John a few winters before about 
two hundred horses were so destroyed. If the Indian 
reports of wolves coming down from the north were true, 
then the winter of 1916-17 doubtless proved a bad one 
for stock owners. 

If wolves multiplied without checks of any kind, they 
would soon overrun the country, for they are so crafty 
that it is difficult to kill them except by poisoning. 
Luckily, they are subject to several fatal diseases: mange 
kills many, and the beasts are also attacked by a strange 
distemper that now and then sweeps away some of the 
Eskimo and Indian dogs. Occasionally a wolf goes mad 
and becomes a peril not only to the rest of the pack but 
to man as well. Except when mad or ravenous with 
hunger, wolves are careful to avoid men. 

Some distance below Fort St. John, a trading-post 
that seemingly contained a smaller white population 
than the Hope, we took aboard a party of sixteen Do- 
minion surveyors who were going out for the winter. 
As the boat was too small to accommodate them, they 
took up their quarters on the scow and cooked their 
meals on a stove they brought along. They had come 



284 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

In early in the spring before the ice broke up and seemed 
very happy to be on their way to the Grand Pays. 
They had been gathered from all over Canada and even 
from overseas. The head surveyor was a French Cana- 
dian from Ottawa. One of his assistants, Norlander by 
name, was a young Swedish engineer who had been one 
of the tennis referees at the Olympic games in Stockholm. 

Another member of the party was Sandy Turner, 
one of the men who accompanied Hanbury on his trip 
to the Barren Grounds, the Arctic coast, and the Cop- 
permine. Hanbury's book is one of the classics of 
northern travel, and in it he presents In a simple yet 
most fascinating way the story of what was truly an 
extraordinary journey, during most of which he and 
his companions lived almost wholly on caribou, seals, 
and musk-oxen, being without even tea a large part of 
the time. Stefansson says of the book that it gave him 
more suggestions about methods of travel than all others 
put together; in fact, it was Hanbury who first demon- 
strated the possibility of living and travelling with the 
Eskimo without taking along a commissariat, a plan that 
Stefansson has followed with such remarkable success. 
Turner told me that when Harry Radford was preparing 
to go north he asked Turner to accompany him, but 
they were unable to come to terms; had Turner gone 
Radford probably would not have become Involved in 
the trouble that led to his murder, for Turner is a man 
of much good sense and would have known how to deal 
with the natives. 

After seeing the wolf I put my rifle together and for 



THE END OF IT 285 

hours, despite a bitter cold wind, kept watch on the 
shores without seeing any other game. Shortly before 
nightfall we passed out of British Columbia into Alberta 
and, as my hunting license extended no farther, I de- 
cided that it was a good time to try to get warm. Ac- 
cordingly I climbed down into the shaft-house and crept 
under my blankets. I had been there only a few min- 
utes when I heard a terrific noise I could not identify, 
though it sounded more like tearing an enormous piece 
of cloth than anything else I could think of. As the 
boat stopped and seemed to be turning in toward the 
bank, I decided that perhaps we had struck a snag, so 
I hustled out on deck, and was astonished to learn that 
the crew had been shooting at some moose and had 
killed one ! Sure enough, when we made the bank, 
there on the beach lay a big bull. 

From the stories of those who had seen the perform- 
ance and from my own observations along the beach, I 
gathered that what had happened was about as follows: 
The surveyors in the scow had noticed four moose, a 
bull, a cow, and two calves, running along the beach well 
ahead of the boat, and had called back the news to the 
crew. The mate at once seized a .30-30 Winchester, 
and the engineer his .401 automatic, and the two began 
blazing away at the bull, which was about two hundred 
yards off. Both men emptied their magazines and pres- 
ently the bull fell dead. The others ran on up the 
beach, hung round for a bit, and then took to the tim- 
ber, which all could easily have done when the boat first 
came in sight. When the dead animal was skinned, it 



286 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

was discovered that only two out of over a dozen bullets 
had struck him. One had gone through his tongue 
without touching the lips or jaws on either side. The 
other had hit him just back of the short ribs and had 
ranged forward through the lungs. 
. The boat was tied up for the night, a fire was built, 
and by its lurid light the cook of the surveying-party, 
with the help of others, began the bloody task of skin- 
ning the big beast and cutting up the meat. As the 
"running season" was at hand, some of us doubted 
whether the meat would be edible or not, but when we 
tried it next day we found it not bad, though a bit 
tough. As the surveying-party had been without fresh 
meat practically all summer, they consumed great quan- 
tities of it. Moose meat, by the way, looks and tastes 
a good deal like beef. Those who know say that one 
can endure eating it for a longer period than is the case 
with venison and most other game meats. 

The bull was an old animal, above the average in 
size, yet the antlers, according to my tape, measured 
only 49>^ inches spread. They were, however, consid- 
ered large for Peace River moose. In the course of the 
trip I had seen the heads of several moose that had been 
shot, also many shed horns, but this was the largest set 
I had seen. The surveyor, who had been working in 
the country for years, said the same. 

The horns were pretty massive, but they had not 
grown symmetrically, and the end of one of the smaller 
tines had been broken off in some way. The head and 
neck were big and striking, as was the bell, though it 



THE END OF IT 287 

was rather large than long. Altogether the trophy was 
an impressive one, and, as the engineer and mate waived 
their claims to it, the surveyor decided to take it back 
east with him. This was a rather ticklish task, as the 
slayers of the beast had no license, and there are certain 
formalities connected with shipping out a head. The 
Alberta law provides that travelers in these northern 
regions may kill game for food, but seems to say nothing 
regarding what may be done with the heads of such 
game. When the boat reached Peace River Crossing, 
the surveyor took the case to the local game-warden, 
but he was unable to throw any light on the matter, so 
the head was finally crated in a big box, a label reading, 
** Glass, handle with care,*' was affixed, and I have no 
doubt that in due course the head safely arrived in 
Ottawa. 

The case exemplifies the confusion regarding game- 
laws and the disregard of them in both Alberta and 
British Columbia. Game of all kinds is killed whenever 
seen throughout the season; outsiders with "prospectors' 
licenses" stretch the permission therein contained to 
kill for food into permission to shoot indiscriminately, 
and no one seems inclined to want to see the laws en- 
forced. 

A couple of hours after we started next morning we 
saw far ahead on an immense gravel-bar a young bull 
moose, while some distance away a small gasolene-boat 
containing two men had made a landing on the beach. 
Seeing our boat, the moose ran back some distance from 
the river and then stupidly stood staring while one of 



288 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

the men on shore made his way in plain sight toward 
him. At perhaps two hundred yards the hunter fired 
several shots, whereupon the bull moved oflf. By that 
time we were at a great distance, and the men in the 
pilot-house insisted that the moose got behind a bank 
and escaped; but to me, watching the scene through my 
glasses, it seemed that the animal sank down on the bar. 

The behavior of this moose and of those seen the 
previous evening illustrates well an almost inexplicable 
paradox in moose nature. At times these animals are 
timid and crafty to the last degree; at others they be- 
have like perfect lunatics. 

Later in the day we saw on a high hill far back from 
the river a big black bear, but made no effort to disturb 
him. In the course of the day we also saw two coyotes 
and a fox. From Dunvegan onward the country is 
more settled, and we saw no more wild animals. 

From the Canyon to Peace River Crossing, a distance 
of two hundred and forty miles, the river flows in a 
deep trough, with hills and plateaus rising on both sides, 
the south bank being still more or less wooded, the north 
bank largely prairie. After one has seen a few miles of 
the scenery he has, to all intents and purposes, seen all 
of it, for it is monotonously alike. 

Much difference of opinion still exists regarding the 
possibilities of the country for agriculture. Some de- 
clare that it has a great future along this line, but I met 
others, long resident, who said that it would "never be 
good for anything but fur." Both judgments are prob- 
ably too sweeping. There are doubtless districts like 



THE END OF IT 289 

Grande Prairie and the lower country toward Vermilion, 
where grain will succeed, while there are other sections 
that may never be good for much. The loss of practi- 
cally all the grain this year was most discouraging. For 
years settlers had been waiting for the advent of the 
railroad in order to have an outlet for their wheat, and 
then the very first year that a railroad reached the 
region and there was a chance of "cashing in," Provi- 
dence stepped in with a killing frost. 

I was much surprised at the amount of game seen 
on this trip, for I had been led by government literature 
and by talk at the Hope to think that the section 
between the Hope and Dunvegan was becoming too 
thickly settled for game to be numerous. As a matter 
of fact, there are almost no people along this stretch of 
the river, and I have no doubt that a hunting-party 
could kill many moose and bear simply by cruising up 
and down the stream at the proper season. Up to a 
few years ago the river-banks in September, when the 
service-berries are ripe, were often literally alive with 
bears; as many as forty were seen on a single trip from 
Vermilion to the Canyon. In still earlier days great 
herds of buffalo and elk were observed by Mackenzie 
and subsequent travelers. Small herds of wild buffalo 
— "wood bison" — still roam the wilderness lying be- 
tween the lower reaches of the Peace and the Liard. 
At Edmonton in 1910 I saw the skin of a bull that had 
been killed in that region by permission of the Canadian 
government. It was almost inconceivably thick and 
heavy. 



290 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

We stopped at Dunvegan long enough for the survey- 
ing-party to stock up on tobacco. This place had its 
boom a few years ago, and prospectuses displayed at 
Edmonton and elsewhere conveyed the impression that 
it was already a large town with a number of railroads. 
It had, however, never heard the whistle of a single iron- 
horse, and it makes less of a showing in the way of build- 
ings than does the Hope, though the country roundabout 
contains more settlers. 

That this immense Peace River country, as large as 
some empires, will ultimately support a considerable 
population I have no doubt. The world is becoming so 
crowded that the day is drawing near when every spot 
that will grow potatoes, turnips, or other products that 
will support life will be occupied. Some land is more 
desirable than others, but even Iceland and Greenland 
are settled, and beyond all doubt the natural advantages 
of Peace River are immensely superior to those of either 
of these hyperborean islands. As wild lands are settled 
they tend to become less repellent and remote. The 
Germany of Caesar's day was a cold country of marsh 
and gloomy forests, considered hardly suitable for human 
habitation, yet Germany is to-day more thickly inhabited 
than "Sunny Italy." Part of Germany is farther north 
than is the Peace River country, but it is not so cold. 
Temperatures of fifty degrees below zero Fahrenheit are 
not uncommon on Peace River. At present the country 
is a land for strong men who wish to "rough it" rather 
than for settlers with families. 

Before we left the Hope the captain had told us that 







}f^:l 






a< 



'^'^^ 



THE END OF IT 291 

we would hardly reach Peace River Crossing in time to 
make the Tuesday afternoon train for Edmonton, and, 
as we had to tie up once on account of dense fog and 
were delayed a couple of hours taking the surveyors 
aboard, his prognostication proved correct. It was not 
until well after nightfall of Tuesday that, having felt 
our way the last few miles, we at last tied up at the 
Crossing and were once more at rail-head. 

A wait of three days at the Crossing for the next 
train and a journey of over two thousand miles still lay 
between me and home, but these were things to be 
regarded lightly. My "Great Adventure" in the Do- 
main of the North was over. The thought gave me a 
feeling of sadness. What has been can never be again ! 

As I look back on the trip from a distance of several 
months, one aspect stands out above all others — our 
remarkable luck in escaping serious trouble. We ex- 
perienced hardships, we often worked to the limit of 
endurance, repeatedly on land and water we slipped 
past situations that might easily have resulted in dis- 
aster, but slip past them we did, and at no time did we 
meet with serious mishap. Both of us came through 
at the end stronger physically than when we started. 

The trials, the hardships, the discomforts, the dis- 
appointments of the long journey are already receding 
into the mists. Only the joys, the delights, stand out 
in bold relief. Again I see the swift, clear shallows, the 
miniature rapids, the leaping trout of Crooked River; 
the white-trunked poplars, the dark spires of spruce, the 



292 ON THE HEADWATERS OF PEACE RIVER 

fantastic cliffs of the Parsnip and the Finlay; the gorge 
and swirhng waters of Deserter's Canyon; illimitable 
wastes of mountains silent in primeval sleep; the three 
towering summits of Mount Lloyd George and the vast 
sea of ice beside it; mountain-sheep quietly grazing on a 
plot of green beyond an Alpine valley; the ragged peaks 
where the majestic Peace bursts its way through the 
barrier wall toward the Mackenzie and the Arctic Sea. 
I hear again the shrill whistle of siffleurs on black cliffs, 
the roar of rushing rivers, the soughing of the wind 
through wastes of forest verdure. These and a hundred 
other scenes and experiences are past, but they will be 
a part of me forever. 

The geographical results were meagre enough; I had 
not expected it to be otherwise. But how rich those 
months were in experiences, in things to be remembered ! 
When my hair is thin and white, when age has stiffened 
my joints beyond any except the shortest walk, when 
eye and trigger-finger no longer work together, when I 
huddle close to the fire and look back into the long past 
filled with many things I would fain forget, I shall recall, 
with some of the old glow, that once I climbed beyond 
the barrier ranges and looked upon a world that was 
new, that for a short while I lived a life such as my fore- 
fathers led, a life that is passing, that the world can 
never know again. 



APPENDIX 

A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 

FROM THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN PORTAGE IN PEACE 

RIVER TO THE SOURCES OF FINLAY'S BRANCH 

AND NORTHWESTWARD, SUMMER, 1824 

By John Finlay (H. B. Co.) 

(notes taken by J. B. TYRRELL FROM A MANUSCRIPT IN THE HANDS 
OF J. MCDOUGALL, ESQ., CHIEF FACTOR H. B. CO.) 

On May 13 left the Rocky Mt. Portage Establishment. The 
party consisted of Messrs. Finlay, McDonald Munson, 6 Canoe- 
men, La Prise & wife, in all 10 persons. 
14-18. Spent crossing the portage. 
19. Started up the river. The Iroquois have been accustomed to 

hunt up Finlay's River. 
22nd. Came to Finlay's river & made three miles up it. Took an 

old Slave Indian & family as guide. 
May 23. Made 16-18 geo miles W.N.W. (mag.) 

24. 12 N. W. 

25. 16 N.W. by N. & N.W. 

26. Arrived at the Forks 55 or 60 geo. miles up river in a straight 

course N.W. The S.W. fork rises near Bear Lake, one of 
the sources of the Babine River. 

27. Went up rocky river from Forks 12 miles to a portage. 

28. Last night two of his canoemen deserted. Crossed the portage 

1 100 paces & went on 4 miles. 

29. Made 13 miles. 

30. " 8 " Soft beds along this river are cut out into 
towers, bastions &c. 

31. Made a few miles. 

293 



294 APPENDIX 

June I. Ascended the main river to the Forks at a distance of 36 
or 40 geog. miles above deserters portage. Here a small 
branch* about Yi of the river, comes down the same valley, 
while the large branch ^ of the whole comes through the 
range to the S.W. The Slave guide said you could go 2 days 
up the small branch in canoes. It then breaks up in small 
branches & you would go over a height of land, where there 
are some lakes, and then into branches of the Liard River. 

The large branch, coming from S. W., takes its rise in a 
large lake called Thutade. Took this branch & made 2-3 
miles on It towards the S.W. 

June 2. Made 6-7 miles of difficult travelling up this river. 

June 3. 3 miles straight a pt. or two N. of N.W. Over portage & 
through canons, very difficult navigation. 

4. River very bad, but made 3 miles westward & came on an In- 

dian road & a camp of Thicannies, 

5. Made a short distance up the river to the head of a portage on 

the right 345 paces long. 

6. Ascended the gorge to an open valley, up which they went 2-3 

miles & camped. This pt. he places as the most northerly 
pt. of this branch of the river. 

7. Made 3>^ miles W.S.W. 

The river now forms island shallows, with banks of loose 
stones & gravel. 

This evening came in sight of a high peaked range of snow- 
covered mts. 

8. Made G-"] miles W.S.W. up river full of gravel shoals. 

9-1 1. 8 miles S.W. through narrow chasms to a small lake i>^ m. 
long with a level plain extending to the foot of the Peak Mts. 
Here he found some of Thicannies fishing. Sent off two lads 
for the old chief Mithridates, who is fishing at a lake called 
Thucatade. 

12. Passed some portages in Rapid River & camped on a portage 

1450 paces long. 

13. Crossed the portage by ii a.m. It is now 32 days since leav- 

ing R. Mt. Establt. Following Summary R.M. portage 6 
days, to mouth of Finlay's R. 3 or 4 days, to deserters portage 
5 days, to branch passed on ist inst. 4 days, to Pt. du Mouton 

* Evidently fox RrveYT "' 

28 6 " 90 



APPENDIX 295 

4 days, to the end of this portage to Fishing Lake 3 days, 
or about 26 days travel. In high water river probably not 
practicable at all. 

Paddled up the Calm river to the Fishing lakes where they 
came to some camps of Thicannies. The river is said to 
take its rise in lake Thutade, 4 days travel by land away, 
but with the exception of one high fall the river is probably 
not bad. 

14. Mithridates arrived with the Indians, in all 7 married men & 

7 young men. He told him that it was three days journey 
across the Peak Mts. from the source of this river to Bears 
Lake, the river from which flows into Babine Lake. Mr. 
Finlay then goes on to say that he found the country west of 
the Mts. very rocky & mountainous with dwarf wood, and 
with some small plains in the valleys of the rivers. 

Asked for men to guide him to the source of the river & 
across mts, but the chief said that there was now too much 
snow in the mts. 

15. Remained in Camp. 

16. Indians said they did not want to take him across the mts. 

but he resolved to go. 

17. Indians promised to take him through the mts. a little later 

in the summer when there was less snow, & two would go 
to Thutade. Left camp & made 8K miles to River Thuca- 
tade, which is about 30 geog. miles long straight. Made 2 
miles up the river. 

18. Ascending the river. 

19-22. Ascending the river. Falls & swift water. 

23. Arrived at Lake Thutade at the source of the river. The lake 
runs S. by E. or S. 8 or 10 geog. miles straight & 8 or 10 miles 
more S.W. by S. & S.S.W. by compass. The lake is formed 
of a number of circular lakes & open narrows. Depth in 
lakes 30 fathoms. Lake i-i>^ mile wide. Remained at this 
lake till June 30 at least, when the Journal ends. 














'■•- •''o 





HECKMAN 

BINDERY INC 



WS^ N- MANCHESTEf? 
INDIANA 46962' 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

HI 



009 543 188 4 











